The warehouse district of the "Old City" part of North Bend was a freerunner's playground, so long as you knew where to look. And Tracy knew where to look: while the streets might be dangerous, nobody used the tops of the buildings for shady dealings - not in view of satellites and telescopes from the Arcadia Tower. There was always the risk of a police patrol, of course, but Tracy wasn't too worried about those.
She ran across the warehouse rooftops, using their forests of vents, air conditioners and other obstructions to vault, climb and hurdle over. Her bicycle shorts and sports bra were dull gray, to match the rooftop surfaces, and her auburn hair matched the rust as well. Light tan skin wasn't that noticeable from a distance, usually, either. Not that she really cared - for the moment, it was just her and her running shoes pitted against the urban landscape.
Most of the old warehouses where close enough together that she could vault the 8 to 10 foot gaps, but sometimes she needed something narrower. She could see her destination from here, standing out because of its privacy-fenced rooftop, and there was narrow enough alley at the end of the roof she was on now. She deliberately jumped short, her gloved hands and padded knees hitting the far wall. Elbows and knees folded, then sprung back - speed was critical in order to make use of the momentary friction. Push off hard, spin, hit the opposite wall. Repeat as needed, until you made it to the ground.
Once on the alley floor, Tracy stopped moving. Her legs, arms, back and lungs were all burning, the sweatband keeping her hair out of her gray eyes was saturated, and the narrow, hard plastic backpack needed adjusting. From her jogging belt she unclipped one of two canteens, filled with her favorite sports drink (Go Go GatorJuice! Now in Melon Flavor!) and drained half of it. From another pouch came a sponge-cloth packet, which she tore open with her teeth. The absorbent cloth soaked up the sweat from her face, neck, arms, belly and legs. The sweatband had to be wrung out by hand, and stuffed into a different pouch. Her panting having returned to normal breath, she checked the street for traffic and then walked across to the doors of Reality Check while adrenalin and endorphins kept her courage up. Hopefully the person she was looking for would be in, and willing to see her.
Pressing the button on the intercom, Tracy leans forward and says, "Hello? I'm Tracy Trudeau, looking for Jason Edwards."
Sitting back in the shadows of a dimly lit room, the building's owner has been watching this mysterious intruder for a few minutes now. "Thieves usually moved quieter and less in the open," he mutters to himself as he flicks from camera to camera for different view angles. When the intercom crackles and parrots the identity of the 'trespasser' he sits forward, bringing himself into the reach of the light from his multiple screens. Monitor light is not particularly kind to anyone, much less a thinly build and somewhat scraggly-looking man who must be in his early thirties, or being generous, very late twenties ... and sees less than adequate sleep. He flicks a switch on his desk then leans his chin into his palm, looking bored. "Trudeau. Relation to Holly Trudeau, I presume. Creator of the now legendary 'goth girl' of the avatar's world, mm?" he asks, sounding either tired or bored. It's hard to tell with the tinny speaker.
It's summer and the sun illuminates Tracy mercilessly. The other warehouses that she can see nearby are abandoned, in some cases windows broken in as if by a brick. There are no scavengers to be seen now, but it's a safe guess that if there were any, they aren't of a mind to tamper with whatever security systems Reality Check has instaled.
Tracy winces at the mention of her former online identity. "Yes, that's me.. we met in the game, remember? I helped you out? I was hoping you could.. help me out with a technical issue," she replies.
Overhead a red skycar zooms by on its way from the Magnolia Tower, its engines a distant drone. The gas station down the road looks lonely and abandoned, ground traffic virtually nonexistent.
"So you came running through the old city, dressed like bait on a hook for scavaging gangs?" Jason replies through the intercom, "I hear phones are a lot safer, if open for people to listen in on." A crackle reminiscent of a sigh follows, then another comment, "But then I can also figure this is something you don't want your mother to know about to take the risk you just did. So now you've left me with a bit of a problem. I call your mother and she'll blame me or claim I put you up to this. I leave you out there and you remain bait and if anything happens, I'll be blamed. Or, I let you in and hope that no one else has identified you and already called your mother."
"I covered my tracks!" Tracy insists into the intercom. "But it sounds like your best option is to let me in, right?" she asks. She knew coming in person would get her the best chance of a meeting!
"There is always the forth option of shooting you with a tranquilizer dart, taking you to a public transit station, and depositing you in a shuttle heading back to the towers," Jason points out. There's a strange pause, followed by a rather odd comment of, "Oh ... don't look at me like that. Fine, fine, fine." The front doors click, then slide open. "Enter and stand still," the voice says.
"Why do I have to stand still?" Tracy asks, but enters as asked. The endorphins are wearing off and she's starting to get nervous.
The answer to that comes quickly enough when Tracy's body is illuminated by literally hundreds of beams of laser light that sweep her from head to toe. There's no warmth, so the power output is obviously low, but the effect is momentarily blinding.
Closing her eyes first, Tracy yells, "Hey.. you didn't say you were gonna scan me! There'd better be a privacy filter on whatever that was!"
The front office looks like a normal corporate office. While there's a receptionist desk and chairs for people to wait in, it's currently unstaffed, and the double doors to the left and right don't have windows to reveal whatever might be behind them. A poster on the far wall reads: 'Reality Check - it's 11 PM, do you know where your data is?'
"Hello?" Tracy calls after the spots in her vision clear up. "Have I been talking to an AI all this time? Where is everybody?"
Naturally the only answer comes in the sound of doors opening to her left, then spotlights illuminating a path that leads into one what looks like a conference room. With the light level, though, it feels more like it leads into a police interrogation room.
"So.. that way," Tracy guesses with a sigh, and follows the path. "If you put my mother through this, she never mentioned it."
The door closes behind Tracy. The sound it makes is a lot louder than it ought to be. It's probably amplified by a set of hidden speakers somewhere in the room. One of the ceiling spotlights illuminates one of the chairs at the conference table, close to the tri-panel of displays.
Tracy moves cautiously into the room, and makes sure to bend down to check under the tables. "Evil Villain chic, nice," she mutters, and goes to the illuminated chair after unstrapping her backpack. "We have you now, Mr. Bond," she says in a faux-European accent before sitting down.
There's no evidence of a hidden bomb under the table or the chair.
It's funny that Tracy should mention that because the holo-projector comes to life. A shimmering image of a shadow-shrouded man appears sitting at the head of the table. It also doesn't help the figure is petting something that's sitting in his lap, completing the cliche image of an evil villain in his lair. Something about the size of a large cat, though the lighting doesn't make readily apparent what it is. "Welcome to my humble home," Jason's voice echoes in the room from an array of hidden speakers.
"Nice.. accent lighting," Tracy offers, trying not to look completely creeped out by it all. "So... what was that scan you did?" she asks first, since it's bugging her.
The mysterious creature purrs contentedly, in a higher-pitched tone than a cat would use.
"You're unarmed, you show signs of slight solar radiation damage, commonly called a tan, and your pulse was one-hundred-twelve. You also have elevated levels of lactic acid buildup in your major muscle groups, indicating a fairly strenuous workout in making in here. A five mile run, perhaps? Without assessing your medical history, I really have no profile to compare it against," Jason answers while the projected figure in the shadow seems to shrug.
"First off, this is my natural skin tone," Tracy notes, feeling butterflies in her stomach. "Did it tell you I've got reactive ArmorWeave lining on my clothes, know martial arts, or can touch the back of my head with my toes? And.. it had better not have revealed too much, mister!" she growls.
"Or what? You would use that vibro-blade you're carrying? Hope the civilian-grade armor could project you? You're on my property and I could make it appear like you committed any number of crimes and still be done in time for afternoon tea. Remember, I have to defend against scavagers out here, Miss Trudeau," the figure remarks. The lights in the room increase and the holo projector snaps off. The door in the back opens and a thinly build, and rather tired looking, man walks through the doorway. He's dressed in a heavy scorch-mark adorned faux-leather apron and has dark tinted circular welding glasses pushed up holding back his hair from his face. "And you're obviously Holly's daughter," he remarks as he pulls of thick welder gloves and tosses them on the sofa, "She didn't have much of a sense of humor either. You need to relax or you'll get wrinkles."
"Funny.. she said the same thing about you," Tracy says, and then stands up, grabbing her backpack. She starts to approach the man, and then stops. "Is it alright to come closer?" she asks, just in case.
"That depends," Jason remarks as he unhooks the apron and tosses it to join the gloves, leaving him in a grayish tee-shirt and worn denim jeans. The glasses stay put for now.
"On?" Tracy prompts, bobbing her head a little in encouragement.
"That you aren't carrying a squid in that backpack," Jason replies.
"A.. squid?" the girl asks, suddenly looked worried. "You mean like Japanese take-out?"
"No, as in a living squid. Your mother had a hobby of lobbing squids at people," Jason notes as he laughs to himself at presumably an old memory.
Tracy chews on her lip for a bit, trying to decide if the man is only insane.. or insane and knows her mother better than she does. "No," she says firmly. "No live anything in here," she claims as she pats the plastic shell of the backpack. "That's.. kind of why I'm here."
"If you came for me to put something live in your backpack, I'm afraid I can't help you. I tend to deal in the non-living and electronic, Jason notes as he waves at the table before heading over to it. "Since you did go to a lot of effort to come here and I'll be honest, risked your safety, I guess this has to be important. Lets see what you have."
Opening the clamshell of the backpack, Tracy extracts a bundle of black cloth - except that close up it seems to made mostly of tiny hexagonal scales. As she spreads it out on the table it becomes clearer that it's an armored, holographic skin suit. "I.. uh.. recovered this. But it's military, and my home inductor pad won't sync up to charge it. I figured you might have something that could? Or could make something?" she asks hopefully.
"Wellllll," Jason remarks as he arches his brow slightly at military-grade suit. "You really shouldn't have this. It should be returned to the military. I have a few contacts I might be able to get to take this with no questions asked..."
"Hey, I found it stuck in a trash chute, so... finders keepers, right?" the girl claims. "I'm pretty sure it's from Irongrip Security though."
"Taking a speeder parked in the street without an obvious owner isn't legal either, you know," Jason points out. "Why do you even want it? Planning a life of crime?"
"No!" Tracy quickly claims. "I mean, it's got other uses. It's short-throw holography is way better than the consumer stuff, plus it's got full covering, powered spring-heels and spider gloves.. err.. that is, it'd be perfect for a costume I'm designing. See, I want something really kickin' for GloamCon, and matching my character's look and being able to simulate a shape-shifted form would be... nice."
The sneaksuit looks like it's only been worn once or twice, judging from the 'new suit' smell and lack of wear.
Jason visibly twitches at the mention of GloamCon and more virtual games and characters. He fiddles a bit with the suit, including turning it inside out at one point and inspecting the battery pack. "I would be doing you a favor by not helping you," he notes as he continues to look over the suit. "The last thing anyone needs is to get lost into yet another fantasy."
"Hey, it's different this time," Tracy claims. The battery cluster runs down the spine of the suit, with protrusions out the back at both ends. "See, I do VR-scaping.. you know, world design?" the girl explains. "And since the Gloaming has a potentially infinite number of worlds, I figure I can sell some to DanTech. Eventually."
"Oh, that was the worst thing you could have said to me," Jason remarks. "The last think I want to do is help out Dantech in any way."
"That.. what?" Tracy asks, looking shocked. "Hey, this is.. You could still help me though!" she finishes.
"Ever watch conspiracy vids? A lot of them have basis in reality. No corporation ever operates in a completely honest way. Some dabble in black ops and military experiments because .... they aren't bound by the same rules," Jason explains as he taps his fingertips on the battery charger. "Companies like Dantech aren't just in it for the entertainment and ad revenue. They ... do things to people. Also ... something else you should know." He spins and leans back against the table. "This suit was sold one month ago, according to its serial number registration, to Irongrip Security. It has been worn at the most twice. These are expensive. So ... why would it be thrown away?"
"Maybe it's busted.. I don't know," Tracy says after the little lecture. "I can't charge it up to find out. I mean, you can't even seal it up without a charge, since it use electrostatic bonding or whatever instead zippers. And sure, DanTech probably has dirty stuff, but what corp doesn't? But not everything is unsavory, you know. And it's not like I'm interning there or anything!"
"Wait.. how'd you know when it was sold just by reading the serial number," the girl asks, once she notices that bit of info. "Do you have a radio jack?"
"The human skin has an electrical resistance of about eighty-thousand ohms. Once penetrated, the human body has about eight-hundred ohm resistance," Jason continues on, "If this thing shorted out and pierced your skin, it would take less than twenty-six milli-amps of current to kill you. That isn't much. It's possible this thing is defective and killed its last owner." He then waves his hand and answers the question, "As for how I know. Well, we all have our secrets. And if this was accidentally misplaced, well ... Vilius Irons isn't one to be nice about trying to get it back. ormer head of Avatar's security, that one. Also rumored to do black market 'shakedowns' and less than legal surveillance."
"But you could probably make that inventory record disappear, right?" Tracy asks coyly. "I'm sure if it was serious, it wouldn't have been dumped in a public trash chute. Poorly, for that matter, since it was caught in the lid still."
"Kimon, please secure my current project in the lab, would you?" Jason calls out to the empty room, "I'll resume work on it later and it isn't anything Miss Trudeau needs to be involved in. "Grab your suit. We can see what the onboard computer has recorded about its last mission before I agree to anything," he remarks to Tracy, pushes himself off the edge of the table, then heads towards the door he came through and waves for her to follow.
"Acknowledged," a toneless voice responds.
Tracy scoops it up and follows quickly. "Thanks Jason!" she says. "I really appreciate this!"
"You haven't seen the bill yet," Jason points out as they pass through the doorway and then through a rather ordinary-looking kitchen, complete with unwashed dishes in the sink.
The teenager curls her lip a bit at the mess. "You need a housekeeper," she suggests.
"Oh look a surcharge just appeared on your bill to help pay for one," Jason quips.
"Hey, no fair!" Tracy complains. "I helped you out for free when you were stuck in the Diadem. And it cost me everything I had when my house was burned down! And ruined the rest of my life in the process. You should at least give me a discount!"
"Life isn't fair. That's rule number one," Jason says as he enters his lab through a set of double doors. "Put it on the third table on the right. I have to go find one of the salvaged indusors to power it up." He waves his right hand over his head as he heads to a pile of parts as he adds, "RIU, keep her from touching anything dangerous, please."
Tracy lays the suit out on the indicated table, grumbling something about 'rules' and then looks up again. "RIU? Wasn't that the name of your Avatar?"
Previously unnoticed, a small blue robotic dragon pops up from behind a computer display! It beeps at Tracy happily.
"Aaugh!" Tracy yelps, bumping back into the table. "RIU! Is that really you, or did Jason recreate you.. somehow?" she asks quietly.
The tiny dragon tilts its head at Tracy quizzically. Beep?
Smiling, the girl goes over and tries to rub the creature's head. "I guess that's a 'yes it's really me' beep," she says.
RIU purrs, slitting its luminously blue eyes. It isn't among the list of dangerous things that Tracy should be prevented from touching, right?
"So life isn't fair, but sometimes you get really cool stuff anyway," Tracy mutters, switching to the dragon's chin. "Maybe you'll rub some luck off on me, little guy."
The dragon opens one eye to give Tracy a look and a questioning chirp.
"Nothing is free," Jason notes as he shows up beside the table carrying a box of apparent junk. He rummages around through it until he pulls out what looks like something military-grade. What gives it away is the drab olive color. He sets it near the receiver of the suit, then goes about hooking it up to the nearby bench power. Before turning it on, though, he connects another probe to the main data bus of the suit's computer so that he can monitor the data pattern on the bus via his own computer (and record it for investigation later, of course).
"Does RIU eat anything?" Tracy asks as she watches, still stroking the dragon. "I bet he chases moths. Boy, if that 'VR is Real' blogger ever saw him, he'd probably pop."
"He eats nosy teenagers," Jason remarks as he flicks the power on for the charger.
There's no sound from the suit as it begins accepting power. A nearby computer display flicks on with a pattern of hexagons. Letters float up from the bottom into the center to read: "Second Skin OS v3.3 - Starting." Beneath that, flickering lines of text show the various subsystems as they initialize.
RIU coils around to the table and sniffs at the suit, now that it finally gets to see the object of all this curiousity.
"How long does it take to fully charge?" Tracy asks. "Not long, right, if it's military? The references I found weren't specific, since it's like.. secret or something. But fast.." Her gray eyes light up and go wide as the system boots up.
"It depends on the current flow in the circuit. Fast charge means high heat," Jason remarks, though he sounds rather distracted about it as watches the boot sequence.
The startup sequence clears and the hexagons begin rotating around each other in a dizzying 'screensaver'-style effect.
A charge meter appears at the bottom of the screen: "5%"
Tracy tries to unobtrusively watch over Jason's shoulder. "It looks like it's working," she notes happily. "When can I try it out?"
The charge meter increases slowly as the suit sucks up power.
"Kimon, Cross-reference name Amaranth and Soroyama, please, in all known databases," Jason says, eyes narrowed. He waves his hand once and says, "Not now. The programming has been modified. It may not be safe."
The toneless voice comes from a nearby robot - a humanoid droid made of a smooth golden plastic, its head somewhere between vulpine and human, dressed in a kimono. "Working."
The girl puffs out her cheeks, then poofs out a breath, trying to be patient. Then the robot speaks and grabs her attention. "I thought that was a... um... statue," she notes.
Kimon inclines its head toward Tracy politely. "Irrelevant results discarded. Amaranth: a cosmetic surgery and cybernetic prosthetics corporation. Soroyama: a Japanese name. Most relevant cross-correlation suggests an artist of late 20th century." A different computer display lights up and displays a series of art, fantastic silver-skinned robot women.
"It's a skin program!" Tracy gushes.
Jason taps his cheek. "Well, I would think that was obvious from the start. The question is what skin," he remarks rather dryly. "For example, this could be a concubine suit used by the company owner to have had ... disturbing adventures, if you catch my meaning." He looks for controls to see if he can activate the skin pattern.
The robot continues, "Cross-referencing: a Soroyama-brand skin program devised by Amaranth. Exclusively sold to higher tier customers, not available to the general public. Estimated price New-Dollar 5,000. This creates a mirror-like effect." The display switches to an Amaranth-brand advertisement showing what appears to be a living mirror walking through a garden.
"That's..." Tracy starts to say, and just trails off. "I've been due a bit of good luck, but this is amazing!"
"Hmm," Jason mutters as he continues to think. "The skin program is probably illegal, Tracy. Which means it may also be modified. I had better trigger it and see what it does."
"A limp mirror will look weird," Tracy notes.
Kimon, having concluded its report, resumes quietly observing.
"I'm not about to let you kill yourself in my lab," Jason says, "I don't have the time to deal with that. If it turns on safely, I may consider letting you put it on."
The computer display blinks and then displays: "SOROYAMA SKIN v3.3 Amaranth - active". The sneaksuit slowly fades away, hexagon by hexagon, into a perfect mirror of the ceiling of the room.
Jason lifts bits of the now reflective suit with a screwdriver, looking at it this way and that.
"That is cool," Tracy announces slowly, looking at the distorted reflections.
RIU admires its own reflection in the suit happily. It's never looked shinier. ^_^
Jason disables the suit skin so that it returns to its normal state. "I don't like this. The programming is stolen and the suit is of dubious origin," he remarks, frowning, "But I can't find anything obviously dangerous. I know I'm going to regret this, but ... put it on Tracy."
Grinning, Tracy grabs it up, and then looks around. "Where can I change?" she asks.
"Kitchen," Jason says and thumbs back towards the way they came.
"Right, stay out here!" the girl notes, and dashes off back into the kitchen.
The small blue dragon flies after Tracy. Beep!
"I have a really bad feeling about this," Jason remarks. He doesn't dissuade RIU from following, though ... nor does he mention he can see what RIU sees if he concentrates on it.
"Hey RIU!" Tracy notes. She puts the suit on the small table, and removes and folds her clothes - including her shoes and socks - before working her way feet first into the stretchy suit. She of course does not know that Jason can see any of it! Finally she closes the electrostatic flap that runs from neck to groin along the front of the suit, and waits a moment for it to adjust and 'stick' to her skin, so that she can be heated and cooled by the micropores - literally making it a 'second skin'. It takes another minute to stuff her hair into the hood, but she doesn't pull down the face-covering veil yet. "Let's go see how it works now!" she tells the little dragon, and heads back out into the workshop.
RIU seems more interested in observing the suit and how it works, than any interest in Tracy herself. It beeps a cheerful reply as it flies back out.
"You look like you escaped a club of dubious reputation," Jason helpfully remarks as Tracy re-enters the lab. "Now come back over here and I'll control the suit skin patterns. I don't trust that thing."
Once back in the workshop, Tracy spins around once with a grin, then swipes a finger along the suit's left forearm to bring up the control panel. "I can do it from this," she notes, showing the screen.
"I would rather you didn't," Jason remarks and heads towards Tracy now. "It's likely dangerous. Quit being reckless!"
"SOROYAMA SKIN v3.3 Amaranth - active," confirms the readout. The sneaksuit resumes its mirror program. RIU chirps happily and flies around Tracy to admire the effect its wings have against the suit.
"It's a party costume," Tracy notes, and pulls down the veil. Once it's sealed and 'inflated' electrostatically, her face vanishes. "Wow, this is interesting!" she reports, holding her hand up. "There's an outline around me. I guess so you can tell where your body is when you run a chameleon program."
"You had better hope you can get out of that suit. Calm down and think clearly. No one would 'throw out' a suit that works perfectly," Jason says, "Check the suit for other skin patterns. There may be hidden ones."
Suddenly the control panel and the computer display both display a new message: "The Emperor's New Clothes - active. Suit seals - overload. You - have been had!" The suit shimmers and becomes a nude rendition of Tracy, save for the large bright yellow smiley faces over her chest and hip.
RIU beeps startledly! Its reflection is gone!
"You worry too much," Tracy notes, gazing at her palm. Apparently, she doesn't see what everyone else does. "It doesn't work like a true mirror," she notes, "I don't get the infinite depth effect when I look at my own reflection."
Jason brings his right hand up, covers his eyes, and starts laughing. "I tried to tell you there was something wrong with it. The skin program has a virus. You're showing up naked. Kimon, go fetch a real mirror, please. And a robe. And a can opener. And make sure we have a video capture of this; this may be useful in the future."
Jason was probably not prepared for the screaming and crying, and having an eighteen-year-old hiding under his worktable. Looking up the details on "The Emperor's New Clothes" virus didn't help any either.
RIU curls around Jason's shoulder. It trills worriedly as it peers down at the table from which distressing noises are emerging. Kimon for its part stands stolidly by with its cargo of a rectangular mirror (more often used to see behind machinery than one's face), a bathrobe, and a can-opener which seems more suited to opening cans than suits.
"Will you relax? It isn't that bad. You don't have anything I haven't seen in the movies," Jason points out in a not terribly helpful way to try and calm the teenager down. Just think if it like wearing a smiley-faced bikini? I'm sure it can be worked out."
"Kimon, please pull up any current details regarding The Emperor's New Clothes," Jason tells his robotic assistant.
"I don't care what you say, I don't see any smiley faces in the mirror!" Tracy declares. "Nobody's seen me like this before!"
"I did warn you," Jason points out with a sigh and the shake of his head. "You're not ugly, and you're in a safe place. I'm not about to do anything untoward and I hope you mother never suggested that I would."
The fox-like robot in the kimono - the way it's shaped doesn't suggest a gender, only careful neutrality - nods to Jason's query. "Search in progress. Context established. Originates from parable describing the story of a very good salesman and a very foolish Emperor. Most recently reported in connection with sabotaged skinsuit programs." Several computer displays light up with CERT reports on the virus and how it can be most expediently removed from infected skinsuits.
Along with the hyperventilating, there are gurgling sounds starting to come from under the table. Hunched over as she is, the gas-exchange membranes in Tracy's suit mask are probably having to deal with 'fluids' from her crying.
Jason rubs his temples. "Please list the safest methods for extraction, Kimon," he instructs his robotic servant. The hacker then drops down to his knees and crawls under the table with Tracy. "Please calm down," he repeats, holding up his hands in a peacemaking gesture. "It really isn't that bad."
One of the computer displays includes annotation on the virus origin - developed by a cyberterrorist group called Face Reality, it was distributed via peer-to-peer file transfer systems in copies of popular skinsuit programs. The source code contains a screed about today's society's preferring to live in delusions rather than accept themselves and the world as it stands.
Kimon intones, "Reversion to manufacturer software setting is recommended. This will remove all user-installed modifications and programs." A computer display magnifies the appropriate section of the CERT documentation.
Tracy looks terrible. With no way to wipe her eyes or nose, her face is sticky looking, and the rest of her isn't much better. The suit is either truly transparent or there are video pickups on the inner surface, because he can see where sweat is pooling in small pockets.
"Give me your right arm. If I can get to the access port, I might be able to link it to one of my systems and have it purge all skins and reset the suit," Jason instructs. "RIU, I'll need to you to bring over the connections bundle on my desk. One of the interfaces should work."
Kimon places the mirror and can opener on nearby surfaces, then hangs the robe on a convenient post.
It takes a few moments before Tracy manages to extend her right arm. Her palm and fingertips are already starting to look pruny from sweat. The suit's micropores aren't transporting it away from the skin.
The robotic dragon flutters its wings, which seem like crackling blue sheets of electricity, then launches from Jason's shoulder toward the bundle of connections. "Chreep!"
RIU returns with the connectors obediently.
"You really need to calm down," Jason repeats as he tries to gently coax open one of the access panels on the suit. "Your panic is making you sweat more, which is just making this worse."
"I'll relax when I pass out," Tracy mutters.
"Why are you freaking out so much?" Jason asks with an edge of exasperation in his voice. "So you look nude, mostly. So what?"
The way Tracy is shaking makes it none too easy to reach the access point much less peel it open, but after a few tries, Jason manages to unseal a panel. It unfolds to reveal some flat metal terminals.
Jason picks up the pile of 'universal' connectors. The only thing actually universal is that there are so many of the stupid things. He has to go one by one to find one that will connect into the suit terminals.
These seem to go with what looks like a flattened fork stuck to the end of a ribbon cable. As the cable slides in, the tiny light lights up on the connected side; the other remains unlit.
"I was sort of hoping I'd be in an actual relationship before a guy saw me naked, okay?" Tracy sputters. "And thanks for the indifference, it really makes me feel pretty.."
RIU peers at the dangling cable end. As it crouches on the table, its tailtip flickers side to side.
"Look. This is nothing. Worse things could happen than what did. Try a woman kidnapped into a virtual world and had herself mind-raped by an AI and mutated into a shape-changing fox-girl-thing. Or imagine having your skull cut open and some bastard deciding to use experimental wetware in your brain, complete with a 'kill' mode. So forgive me if I can't get worked up over this," Jason finally snaps. He holds the other end up to RIU and says, "Jack this into your systems. I'll do this the direct way."
The sight of the data ribbon apparently coming out of her arm, and just closes her eyes. "Yeah, all terrible, but at least they got some sympathy I bet."
RIU catches the cable in one paw and chomps the tip! Both lights immediately blink a deep and vivid blue.
"I never did," Jason says as he sits back and closes his eyes.
"Maybe.. if.. you.. uhh... people.." Tracy mutters, and starts to slump. At least she's not shaking anymore.
RIU's eyes glow brightly blue as it stares intently down the length of the cable.
The computer display glitches, drawing lines of static across its length.
Bars of static grow larger. The sneaksuit flickers back to its default grey here and there.
The screen goes entirely to static! And then clears, the suit reverting to plain grey all over. "Second Sight Maintenance Access," the computer display announces. A list of options follows, the last of which is 'Revert to Factory Default Software'.
The options scroll and a bar wraps around the first one: 'Backing up all Skin programs to external device'. The cable pulsates as a stream of data presumably flows across the line to be recorded into some backup repository somewhere. After a minute, the bar moves and wraps around the option to reset to factory settings. It flashes once, then the screen goes all static, then is followed by a repeat of the original bootup sequence as it comes back online. Jason's eyes open slowly and he has to blink a few times before he can focus well on his surroundings. He reaches over and pulls the cable out of the terminals on Tracy's arm, then lightly tugs it out of RIU's mouth.
The skin of the suit quickly develops a film of moisture as the pores reactivate and start moving sweat away from Tracy's skin. She flops onto her back, and fumbles at the face mask until she breaks the seal and pulls it and the hood back. She's bright red and panting like a race-horse.
RIU obediently lets the cable end loose. Its forked tongue flickers around its muzzle as if it's opining the data was delicious.
"If you had remained calm you wouldn't have overheated so quickly," Jason says rather ... helpfully. "Come on, there is a bath back near the conference room. "You can cool yourself off there," he offers as he crawls out from under the table.
"Help me up, please," Tracy whispers, crawling partway out from under the table and leaving a damp trail behind her.
Jason crouches down, hooks his arm around her waist, and helps her up to her feet. Without asking, he makes sure her arm is around his shoulder and he half-walks-half-carries Tracy back through the kitchen and to the guest bath. "Look, you're pretty. But it would not have helped anything if I had reacted to that than dealing with the problem at hand," he tries to explain and somehow sound sympathetic. "Nor would it have had I freaked out. High pressure situations require remaining calm and dealing with the matter at hand, not getting distracted."
RIU flutters along like an escort fighter. Kimon remains behind in the lab.
Tracy doesn't really respond. She has her head down, so her wet hair hides whatever expression she may have. Once they've reached the bathroom, she unseals the front of the suit to release another gush of water and heat. "Thank you," she mutters. She struggles a bit with the suit, then sighs and asks. "Can you peal this off of me too? And.. uh.. something.. canteens. My belt.. canteens. Electrolytes."
"RIU, can you get her belt and canteens, please?" Jason asks the electrical dragon as he positions himself behind Tracy she he doesn't have the opportunity to see anything more than he already has as he goes about the rather difficult task of pealing her out of the sneaksuit. "What did you mean earlier when you said your life was ruined?" he finally asks.
"Huh?" Tracy responds blearily, once she's got her hands pulled free. "Lost.. my home, friends. Thought I was targeted for drug running or something, nasty rumors. Avatars... all my old friends preferred the 'new improved' version of me. How pathetic is that? Pushed aside for an artificial version of yourself." She manages to get over the rim of the tub, and fumbles with the lever until cold water sprays out of the shower head.
RIU chimes cheerily, whooshes down toward the pile of discarded clothes like a raptor stooping. snag! It snags the belt and heads for the bathroom.
Jason leaves Tracy to shower in peace. He stands outside the doorway, though, so talking is still possible. "Well, if they preferred the new version they weren't really your friends in the first place," he tries to offer helpfully from the outside. "I didn't fare much better. I haven't talked to any of the people who lived through that with me in years now. All I can say is 'it happens' I guess. You do have plenty of life ahead of yourself, though. You're young. More than enough time to make new friends and have a nice, normal, life. Stay away from the fantasy games. All they do is hurt you."
"New school and faces in the Towers, but.. can't hide the name, and questions always come up eventually," Tracy says as she presses her hands to the shower-tub wall and holds her head directly under the stream. "Do you have nightmares? About all that, I mean?" she asks.
The sounds of fervent flapping herald RIU's approach as it works to gather altitude under the surprisingly heavy weight of the canteens. It drops them off onto the bathroom floor with a clatter, then flits back out to rejoin Jason.
"Often," Jason remarks. Outside he guides RIU to coil about his shoulders to rest. "Did your mother ever tell you we were living on borrowed time in that world? The longer we stayed, the more contaminated we became. Eventually, we would never have been able to leave without physically decaying due to unstable molecules. I spent most of my time in that world trying to keep a decaying, old, ship running. Alone in the rusting bowels of an old ship with all the creaks and hissing. It looks fun in movies, but in reality you feel like you're in a coffin with the lid slowly closing on you."
RIU settles in happily on Jason. It purrs a crackly little purr.
"She never told me.. I guess none of the really horrible stuff like that," Tracy answers. The sounds change, as she starts warming up the water to turn it from a cool-down to a real shower, at least once she finds the soap. "For me it's the fire and stuff. I dream that I'm stuck, get burned up, or that the fire is talking to me. I got really depressed when I was like sixteen, and my parents argued and argued about sending me to a psychiatrist. Got a company woman instead, a counselor. Can't talk to outsiders about what happened, after all. It really sucked. Hey.. before I looked like a pruned-up slug, you got a decent look right? On a scale from one to ten, what would you rate me? And were you telling the truth about the smiley faces or just trying to make me feel better?"
"It would not be proper for me to rate you," Jason remarks, "And I was not making it up, there were smiley faces places strategically."
The water turns off, and the flapping of towels commences. "I've been out with three guys in four years.. for like a total of maybe eight dates," Tracy notes, before coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. Her hair is still damp and stringy though, and she's got her jogging belt over her shoulder. She sits on the couch, crosses her legs under her, then uncaps a canteen and drinks it dry.
Jason rubs his forehead when she comes out undressed save for a towel and turns so that he's not facing the couch. "That is eight more dates than I have ever been on," he notes, "So you're doing better than I am. You at least have normal relationships. Well, as normal as anyone of your age ever has."
"If they normal for my age you wouldn't have been the first one to see me naked," Tracy quips, and holds her canteen up in salute, despite Jason's back being turned. She puts it in her lap, along with her hands, and says, "Okay, I don't think I'm gonna puke, so you can turn around and start scolding me now for being an idiot kid with more curiosity than brains."
"Would it make you feel better to be scolded?" Jason actually asks, but does not turn around.
Tracy does another of her puffed-out-cheek sighs, and says, "Probably. It's better than beating myself up. And it'll make me feel more like a stupid kid than an irresponsible adult."
RIU looks over at Tracy curiously, but doesn't seem to see anything unusual in her towel attire.
"Everyone does incredibly stupid things in their lives. Yours was at least non-fatal and won't leave permanent scars," Jason says as he gestures with his left hand. "You already realize what you did was a mistake, so I really don't think yelling will help."
"If I'd done it back in my apartment, I'd probably be dead," Tracy notes, and then says. "I don't like talking to the back of your head. Do I make you that uncomfortable? It's because it's not an emergency now, right?"
"You're eighteen, I'm .. a lot older. There's a point where things become 'creepy old guy' when dealing with women," Jason claims. "Plus, your mother will try to kill me if she knew any of this."
"Pffffft," Tracy goes, then starts in on the second canteen. "I'm convinced my mother wanted me to grow up to pilot a giant robot against space monsters. My dad might worry, but I can handle him. You can't live in fear forever, and you hardly seem someone to care what others think of you, when you live by yourself and do.. what were you working on when I got here, anyway?"
"Personal project. Not important and not up for discussion," Jason says with a note of finality on that subject. "As for leaving in fear ... have someone split open your head some day and diddle in it with wetware, and see how paranoid you become, eh? You asked how I knew about the purchase date? It's because I have a direct link with everything in this building."
Finishing off the canteen and pulling it out of her mouth with a pop, Tracy says, "You are the coolest guy I've ever met." Then she pats the couch. "Sit down, tell me about it. How the hell did someone get into your head, and why?"
"I was a stupid, young, hacker who let curiosity over-ride common sense, ran afoul of some people in powerful positions ... and when I was in a rather horrid accident, they took it as a chance to make sure I could be monitored and neutralized if I became too much of a problem," Jason says and still doesn't move towards the couch. "One of the employees of your little friend, Dantech, was involved. The only good that came out of it is that my link to RIU here is quite ... intimate, for lack of a better term. I can feel what he feels and see what he does if I focus on it."
RIU chins its muzzle on top of Jason's head. Beep!
"That.. doesn't make any sense," Tracy says. "Why go to all that expense, and then let you go? If it was an experiment, they'd want you around. If they thought you'd be a problem.. well, if you already had a serious head injury they could have just let you die or be a vegetable. So, logically, you can't be a unique case. There must be others they've done it to, and some reason for it. Have you tried to find out more? And if you don't come sit down, I'll have to stand up and come over there, and I'm really kinda dizzy still and the towel may fall off, whereas it can't fall off if I'm on the couch. And do you have any fruit juice or anything that's not a soft drink?"
"It was to test experimental designs, and no, I haven't dug much into it. I've had too many other matters to deal with, like making a living," Jason says with a hint of exasperation returning to his voice. He practically stomps off into his kitchen, leaving Tracy alone for a moment.
RIU beeps in rhythm with the stomping.
"So, what do you do for work, exactly?" Tracy calls, eyeing the odd posters. "Did you make these posters yourself? Anyway.. you hunt down cybercrooks, right?"
Jason returns with sealed bottle of apple juice and tosses it to Tracy before he sits down on the couch ... and looking unhappy about it. "I mainly deal with making sure a companies systems can withstand common attack patterns and how to recognize social engineering hacks. Sometimes, yes, I deal with tracking down who is breaking into a system. That's how the whole Fracture mess started. The best person to catch a crook is another one, or so the wisdom goes."
"So you were a crook?" Tracy asks, turning a bit to face Jason as she opens the bottle and has a swig.
"Once. I'm legit now, so don't get any ideas," Jason remarks. He finally gives Tracy a sideways look and asks, "Did you come here just for help with that suit, or were you looking for something more?"
"Maybe some education," the girl admits, and scoots a little closer before drinking from the bottle again. "Why'd you assume I wanted to use the sneaksuit to commit crimes?"
RIU winds back around Jason's shoulder again, now that he's settled down, tucking its wings up against its body.
"Because I can't imagine an eighteen year old girl would want to use it for something legitimate," Jason notes, "As you said earlier, it doesn't make sense."
"Well, to be honest, I thought I could use it for freerunning and climbing without being seen," she says. "You know.. not looking like 'gang bait' was it? But to be a criminal I'd need to know how to get through locked windows and doors and stuff, wouldn't I?"
"Or you could pick a safer hobby, maybe one your mother could participate in," Jason points out. "Climbing and bypassing simple physical security is the easy part. It's what you don't know on the other side that is the real threat."
Setting the bottle down, Tracy scoots over more - and because 18-year-olds are inherently evil creatures, she turns and lies back along the couch, resting her head in Jason's lap. "It sounds fun though," she says. "I bet it could be useful, maybe even to someone like you? How about you teach me, and I'll wash your dishes and run errands and make you pancakes and stuff? You know.. show you what it's like to have a friend?"
Jason experiences one of those moments where it feels like something shorts out in his brain. "Ah, look. I'm quite happy here alone. I don't need a friend. And uh, trying to flirt things out of me won't exactly work, either," he says as he holds his arms up and out of the way as if touching Tracy would be akin to touching some pox-cursed person.
RIU peers down at Tracy bemusedly, its head upside down from her point of view.
The small robotic dragon licks Tracy's nose, though it feels more like getting zapped with a bit of static electricity.
"You think I'm flirting?" Tracy asks, almost about to laugh as she rubs her zapped nose. "I may as well be an alien to you. If I knew how to flirt.. okay, maybe I was a little. It's nice having someone to talk to who you don't have keep The Big Secret from, and you did tell me to relax. You should relax too. Neither one of us would know what to do anyway, and I'm keeping the towel on even though every square inch of me feels itchy. But I'm not touching Spandex again until tomorrow.. not after what I just went through. I'm trying to be nice, so take your own advice and relax. I'm not trying to seduce you. And..." She suddenly goes a bit pale. "You can see what RIU does, can't you?" she asks a bit accusingly.
RIU looks at Jason. Nope, Jason looks totally normal to it. It looks back at Tracy askance.
"Only if I try to, otherwise I filter it out," Jason remarks with his right brow arched at Tracy's burst of babbling, "I would go insane otherwise."
"Were you watching while I was changing in the kitchen," the girl asks a bit more coldly.
"No," Jason says flatly.
"But you didn't warn me either that you could," Tracy notes, pursing her lips and.. twisting them about a bit, as if trying to chew with them. "And you weren't actually recording anything right?"
"You didn't warm me before you put your head in my lap while being half-naked, either," Jason points out. "And no, I don't have anything recorded ... at the moment."
"At the moment? What does that mean?" she asks, looking.. uncertain. "I'm still undecided if I should feel insulted or relieved. But if you didn't record anything.. I still just have your word for it about the smiley faces and.. I should just forget the whole thing," she says, and raises and drops her arms in a sort of lying-down shrug. "My modesty is blown, and it was totally wasted as well. Figures. What was I talking about before?"
"Look, I don't know what you want. You panic that someone might have seen you naked, which I didn't. Then you get upset that I'm not falling for being manipulated," Jason finally says in exasperation. "You're as frustrating as a woman I nearly threw out of an air car once!"
"Gah, you really can't deal with complicated people, can you?" Tracy asks, shaking her head while she looks up at Jason. "And you really don't care what happens to me as long as it happens outside your little world, right?"
"I have difficulty dealing with crazy people," Jason grumbles and looks towards the ceiling. "So, basically ... the whole suit thing was an excuse to come talk to me? Well, at least partially?"
RIU swishes its tailtip like a metronome while it follows Jason's gaze to the ceiling. Nope, standard boards.
"I wanted the suit," Tracy notes. "But I wouldn't mind a job. And I'm hoping you like me enough to teach me about locks, because otherwise I'll go learn it on my own and it wouldn't be as good as what you'd teach me so I'll probably screw up and get in trouble because once I start a challenge I have to try and see it through. And I bet you won't give or sell me the charger either, but see, then I'd have to come back here to get it charged and you'd have some control over how I used it as a result and could keep me out of trouble that way as well."
"No, I was wrong. You're worse than Inari," Jason says as he flails his arms at the ceiling. It's even more irritating that he could keep some control over how the suit was used by keeping control of the charging system. "You do realize your mother will not approve of you associating with me."
RIU dodges around between Jason's flailing arms, scrabbling to keep its perch on his shoulders!
"I can tell her we're sleeping together, then she won't care about anything else we're doing," Tracy says, smiling like a cat and batting her eyelashes.
Jason goes stiff at that. "You even remotely joke about something like that, Tracy, and I'll forget my somewhat tenuous friendship with your mother and have you put away for more crimes than you could count," he says in an unusually harsh tone. "That's not funny. It's not remotely funny. I'm a lot of things, but I have never been a leach or a pervert."
"Like she'd believe me," Tracy says. "She knows I'd never even tell her if I had a boyfriend. And you gotta relax. Do I have to kiss you to prove there's no chemistry and that I'm safe to be around? Because I'm not gonna do that. What I'm gonna do, is wash your dishes. Then clean up my slime trail in your lab, fall asleep on this couch, and maybe make you breakfast in the morning if you have any actual cookable food. In the towel, because I'm not putting on any tight clothing and certainly not up to running five miles back to the bus stop while still recovering from heat exhaustion. Unless you have an extra bed or something I can use instead of the couch."
Jason rubs his forehead again. "The couch folds out into a bed. Not a great one, but it is serviceable," he says with a sigh. "My lab is generally off limits; I do have private projects I'm working on that want to remain private. There's an entire garden on the roof that supplies most of my food. Also, you do not leave the building after nightfall. The streets are dangerous. And don't forget, I do know everything that goes on in this building, so don't try to sneak into places or access my personal files. And for the love of all that is sacred, stay out of my bedroom."
"Yeah, I can live with that," Tracy says, and pulls herself upright with a groan, before standing up. Then she turns back and says, "Hey, that robot of yours brought a bathrobe, didn't it? Because I'm gonna wear that instead. Frees up my hands. Also, if you have a garden, I should start teaching you yoga. Helped me through some dark times, plus now I can put both of my ankles behind my head and hold that for like.. a half hour. Does wonders for the back." She turns away and heads for the kitchen then stops and turns around again. "Oh, one more thing.." she says, narrowing her almond-shaped eyes a bit.
Jason really didn't need the mental image of Tracy with her ankles behind her head. HE feels that headache coming on again. "What is it now?" he asks, "And the robe was in the lab. I can get it to bring it here."
"I'll get it, you set up the bed and get me something for a headache," Tracy notes, then steps into the kitchen. "Oh yeah! The one more thing," she says, then leans back out. She's got the towel held out in her right hand, and her left arm across her chest. "For future reference, I'm an 8.. minimum.." Then she drops the towel and vanishes, presumably to fetch the robe.
RIU beeps cheerily and gives Jason a look as if to suggest 'She's going to be fun to have around, right?'
Jason, meanwhile, is wondering where he put the old rolodex that had Holly's phone number in it. Sometimes old tech is still the most secure, after all. With a sigh, he pushes himself to his feet so that he can pull out the sofabed. "This is going to delay the test run," he remarks to RIU, "And just when I thought I had the temperature and contraction rate issues worked out. I really ought to just throw her out on her butt. Boot to the fanny, just like Inari in the air car." It's now his turn to shake his head. "Yeah, just like Inari. You did wonders with her too, didn't you. You can't even find the courage to call her. Maybe I'll be lucky tonight and just have a stroke."
One of the problems with having a sleepover guest is that security monitors keep going off every time she moves. From Jason's perspective, however, security overrides privacy when there are potentially dangerous or sensitive projects to protect. The low-light hidden cameras in the conference room didn't need infrared illuminators (which would have given away their locations to anyone with the appropriate eyewear), since there was just enough ambient glow from the monitors. By 10pm the lights where out and Tracy was a low-contrast blob getting into the bed.
And even though he usually makes a point to lock internal doors at night, he doubly so does tonight, making certain his lab is secure, as well as his own bedroom, given the odd behavior of his current 'guest'. "If she comes in here somehow anyway, RIU, blast her into next week," he mutters as he falls face-first onto his bed, then hits the light switch on the nearby dresser.
RIU beeps! While its metallic face doesn't allow it the range of emotions that an organic one would, over the years Jason's learned to read its feelings as easily as his own. This one is definitely 'Yes sir!'
At 2:07am the motion alarm went off, and the cameras showed Tracy tossing and turning before jerking violently awake and kicking away the bedcover. This was followed immediately by her sitting up, grabbing a pillow and rocking back and forth as she cried into it. This kept the cameras going for a good five minutes, before the girl set aside the pillow and began a twenty-minute nude yoga workout, complete with breathing exercises and stretches, ending with what might have been the aforementioned ankles-behind-the-head trick, but mercifully she was doing it face-down to the bed. After a few minutes of motionlessness, the alarm went off again when she finally unfolded herself and got back under the covers.
"I should have just shot her," Jason complains as he tries to cover his head with a pillow about five minutes into the yoga. Not that it really helps him any since he receives direct feeds from the security cameras; so a pillow doesn't block it out. "Or maybe pretended to not be home. Why do I always get the insane ones?"
The motion alarm was quiet until around five in the morning, showing Tracy just lying on her back and staring at the ceiling for a few minutes before finally grabbing the bathrobe and getting up. She vanished into the bathroom, and things were quiet for a good half hour, until she came out, turned on the conference room lights and went into the kitchen.
Jason gave up on sleep well before five. He threw on some worn work clothes and headed into his lab, yawning. Might as well get some work done since the teenager isn't likely going to let him sleep easily anyway. Plus work always helps him deal with situations that make him uncomfortable. Work he can control ... and there is always a project that needs doing.
In the kitchen, Tracy first goes to the doors to the workshop and peeks through the crack for a moment. Figuring that Jason isn't about to barge in, she picks up her clothes from the day before. She gets the shorts, socks and shoes on, then takes off the bathrobe to pull on her sport top. The robe goes back on over this, and she begins washing the accumulation of dirty dishes and exploring the kitchen as she figures out where to put them afterwards. She keeps out two place settings, and rummages through the pantry, pulling out what she needs to make pancakes.
RIU loops around the laboratory, where it's been all night since it doesn't need to sleep. Its brief pause in front of Jason is as clear an 'All clear, sir!' as any sergeant could ask for.
By the time Tracy looks through the door, Jason's back can be seen slightly hunched over where he's working on something at one of the work tables. Next to him is what looks like an ancient holo projector, one that used atomized water as a reflective surface to draw shapes in the air. It's hard to make out what it displays, other than an exploded view of some complex device. Periodic flashes of blue light appear, so he may be arc-welding something at the moment. He's not paying attention to the kitchen, at any rate.
EDIT: Reorder those some!
After gathering what she thinks might result in usable batter, Tracy mixes it all together in the biggest bowl she could find, using the biggest spoon. A little added oatmeal and brown sugar shouldn't make a huge difference, she figures. Soon enough, she has something actually cooking on a skillet.
The kitsune-headed robot stands behind Jason silently, its eyes flickering between colors. Its kimono for the day features test tubes and flasks full of colorful liquids.
When the first batch of flapjacks is done, Tracy nibbles on one to test it. After pursing her lips and bobbing her head from shoulder-to-shoulder in thought, she mutters, "It'll taste fine with syrup." She pours the second batch and sets the first on the table, then goes to the workshop door and knocks on. "Breakfast!" she calls, although she coughs at the end.
paf RIU is right there in Tracy's face! It whirls around her a few times, then darts to go see what's cooking.
"Augh!" the girl yelps and nearly falls backwards. "RIU! I.. didn't know you ate? Do you eat? Or.. just want to sit at the table?" she asks the not-quite-robot.
An advantage for him and a disadvantage for anyone who might try to spy is that he doesn't have to be vocal with any of his equipment, Kimon included. There are moments, though, that end up with colorful cursing when something doesn't go right. Yelling breakfast when someone is working is one of those times. There's a loud 'crack', then something metallic goes ricocheting around the workshop! "Just when I was adjusting the output!" he complains loudly. He yanks off his goggles, tosses them on the workshop, then heads towards the kitchen.
The tiny dragon surveys the room! Sadly, its appetite appears to be of the intellectual sort. It noses one of the pancakes, establishes that the object is neither mobile nor shiny, then goes to investigate the skillet and the novel sight of an empty sink.
"Don't get batter on you," Tracy advises the dragon-droid, as she flips over the current batch of cakes. "It might gum stuff up, and then you'd need a B-A-T-H.." she warns.
RIU peers out from behind a mixing bowl at the pancakes sizzling away. Beep!
Whispering now, Tracy asks RIU, "Is he in a good mood this morning?"
The miniature Chinese-style dragon gives Tracy a curious look. Beep?
The door from the lab swings open. A somewhat sooty-looking Jason comes through as he rubs his eyes. "What are you doing?" he grumbles. He peers at the sink next, then adds, "And where did my dishes go?"
"I.. washed them and put them away?" the girl replies uncertainly, clutching the front of the bathrobe and shrinking a bit.
"Oh. You didn't have to do that," Jason says a little less gruffly. He grabs one of the chairs, spins it around, then sits down in it so he can lean forward into the backrest. "You're up early," he says. "Aren't you tired? You didn't sleep very well."
"I slept as if I were in my own bed," Tracy claims, then pauses as she flips the pancakes into a second plate. "What makes you think I didn't sleep well?" she asks.
Beep! RIU launches into the air, spreading blue flame wings - all show, no heat, Tracy has noticed - and then lands on Jason's shoulder. Its wings truncate to small curves of light. It noses toward the skillet as if to say, Look! You can make SMALL CIRCLES OF FRIED LIQUID with that thing!
"Because you kept setting off the motion sensors," Jason remarks as he slumps down to the point his chin is resting on the backs of his arms. RIU's own antics earn him a comment of, "Yes, cooking. I know I don't do it very much. Or very well."
"I didn't notice any," Tracy says, setting her plate down and turning off the griddle. She frowns for a moment, glancing at the corners of the ceiling.. then just shakes her head and puffs out her cheeks as she exhales. "Doesn't matter at this point anyway," she says softly, then watches Jason to see if he eats one of the pancakes.
The little dragon noses at his master's hair. Evidently its master didn't get quite enough sleep! It gives Tracy a sidelong look.
"The point of a good security system is to not be noticeable. Also, yoga in the nude can be distracting," Jason adds as he pushes himself back up a little more. He grabs a fork and pokes one of the pancakes experimentally. Then while looking at it as if it were some face-eating demon, he cuts off a small piece and actually tries it.
Tracy blushes, and says, "Sorry if I kept you up," in an actually apologetic tone. "I get nightmares a lot and the yoga helps me calm back down."
Jason hasn't fallen over and started twitching yet, at least. "Nightmares?" he asks as he gestures with the fork for her to continue.
"Yeah," Tracy says, giving a little shrug and focusing on her plate now, where she starts cutting up her own pancakes. "The usual stuff, like being dead, in your coffin, in the middle of a party where people just.. sort of ignore you. Then they push you into the big oven. I usually wake up at that point. I guess you must have weird dreams too."
"Nothing usually so ... well, disturbed," Jason says matter-of-factly as he cuts another piece of pancake and eats it. "I got over worrying about people paying attention to me long ago. It's better if they don't."
RIU glides across the tabletop to the nearby outlet, which has an odd looking device attached, terminated with a metal orb.
"Yeah, I sort of picked up that you don't like it," Tracy admits. Then she takes a deep breath, and says, "About last night.. See, I was really, really hitting bottom. I mean, I was completely embarrassed and stupid and.. well, my self-esteem was never that great anyway. It took me three days to work up the nerve to bring the suit to you. And I guess.. I just wanted to grab for something I could feel more in control of, even though that was making you feel uncomfortable. It was really juvenile and.. and not the person I want to be. Not like she was, using people and.." She is clutching her fork so hard now her fingers are turning white.
CHOMP The tiny dragon clamps its jaws around the orb. Bright blue sparks crack around it, running down its length! Despite the picturesque show, RIU seems unaffected; indeed, it purrs as it soaks up its breakfast of electricity.
The sparks do distract Tracy though, who at least eases up on her death-grip.
Jason almost says something he would probably regret quickly. Thankfully he doesn't. Instead, he sets his fork down and reaches across the table and actually places his soot-smudged hand over the back of Tracy's. "Listen. I'm not that great in dealing with other people. Never have been. I'm usually too blunt for most people or too eccentric. But one thing I am not, is someone that would try to get a woman to do intimate things as payment for anything. There are lines that should never be crossed, and pushing someone to violate personal space is one of them," he says, "Nor do I ever want to seem to be one of those people. If anything, I'm too careful with things like that. I don't ... " He draws his hand back, then waves once instead of completing the thought. "Anyway, don't worry about it. You're nothing like Sasha, if that's who you mean. You don't have huge claws, cackle like a maniac, hide in mirrors, and betray everything that breathes."
RIU gnaws on its breakfast-pearl of energy contentedly.
Tracy actually manages a smile. "Thanks," she says. "I'm genuinely sorry and ashamed about that. And I never thought you would take advantage. I mean, that'd be a little too weird, given.. hmmm." She suddenly seems really interested in her pancakes now.
"Given what?" Jason asks just before taking another big bite of pancake.
Not making eye-contact, Tracy mutters, "Well, when my parents broke up over my dad's affair with Sasha, I figured... but I see now that there probably wasn't anything between you and my mom! Right?" She looks up timidly at Jason as she asks the question.
Jason suddenly starts coughing. No ... choking. His arms flail as he promptly falls out of his chair.
RIU looks up from its ball at Jason with an alarmed beep!
"Jason!" Tracy yelps and scrambles under the table to reach him. "I shouldn't have used the oatmeal!" she wails.
Jason tries to wave Tracy off as he gets his breathing back under control and pushes himself to his knees at least. "No," he rasps as he seems to win the battle with the food trying to kill him. "There was nothing between us. Ever."
"I know the Heimlich maneuver," Tracy says, hovering close. "Sorry if I upset you again! I was really thinking all adults were self-centered jerks at the time. Do you want something to drink?"
The miniature dragon peers at the pancakes suspiciously. It approaches Jason's plate, then extends a tiny pawful of claws, which it uses to test the flapjack for evidence of choking material.
They still feel like floppy oatmeal cookies.
Finding no tough fibrous material, or chunks of plastic, RIU retracts its claws and then hops down to flutter protectively around Jason. Rreeep!
"I'm fine, I'm fine. The question caught me by surprise since it seemed like Holly and I were trying to kill each other more than anything," Jason says, then draws a long breath in recovery from flapjack doom. "It's probably a rather sad statement on me, but the person I was ever somewhat close to wasn't even human." He pats RIU's head, then has to add as he lifts RIU back to his shoulders, "Well, the two people."
The dragon coils happily around Jason's shoulder and neck, eyes a more contented shade of blue now.
"Really?" Tracy says, sounding a little relieved. "Then why are you afraid of my mother finding out I visited? I mean, I know why I was, but.. that's not much of a reason now that I know better."
"Because I don't think she thinks I'm safe. That I'll corrupt people, or something," Jason says as he collapses back into his chair. It takes him a moment to find is errant fork after his little shock.
"Ohhhhh," Tracy says, returning to her seat. "I don't think that'll be an issue, not with me," she claims. "I mean, I'm pretty hard to corrupt," she clarifies, and then gestures to her torso. "I blossomed at fifteen but I'm still original-in-package."
"Are you trying to offer me a challenge?" Jason asks. His brow arches up slightly.
Tracy blinks and.. thinks in silence for a moment. "There are rules to challenges," she says. "A challenge can't be impossible, illegal or too likely to result in injury. If a person meets their challenge, they win. If they can get the challenger to drop the challenge via bluffs or other means, they win then too. If they get to a point where they just can't go through with it and call quits, the challenger wins. So, if were to challenge you to... uh.. take back your bathrobe," she suggests, tugging on the fabric, "that would be a valid challenge, because it would involve pushing your boundaries.. while also pushing at mine a bit so there's a chance I'd call it off, if you manage to making me uncomfortable about it."
RIU prreeps? and rests its chin on top of Jason's head, examining Tracy. It looks down at its master.
"I suppose there could be stakes too," Tracy adds as an afterthought - as if the challenge is the whole point.
"The bathrobe would be a bad challenge," Jason notes, "Because I could just close my eyes. Easy." He resumes eating as if everything were perfectly normal.
"Well, you'd still have to touch me though," Tracy notes. "There's a belt. Do you really want to be fumbling around blind?" She grins, since she knows she's got her regular clothes on underneath. "But let's see! I challenge you to get your bathrobe off of me. Also.. uh.. I should ask how much I owe you for fixing the suit?"
"More than you can afford to pay me," Jason remarks as he tosses his fork back on to the table. "Now, if you'll excuse me a moment," he adds, stands, and heads back into his lab, leaving her alone with RIU for a moment.
RIU looks toward its departing master, then gives Tracy a sidelong look as if to suggest You two!
"Hmmph, I could have done a payment plan or work in trade probably," Tracy tells RIU. "At the very least, he needs somebody to do some grocery shopping. Does he just eat his garden vegetables raw?"
Two minutes pass before Jason comes back wearing gloves and carrying a toolbox. He pulls out several vice-grip pliers, some rope, and scissors. He measures out a two meter long length of rope, cuts it, and drapes it around his neck. The two ends are tied to the pairs of pliers.
The miniature dragon beeps noncommittally, then resumes gnawing its breakfast.
"Uhhh..." Tracy says, looking a bit alarmed. She tries to distract herself by cleaning out the mixing bowl at the sink.
Whistling, now, Jason comes over and clamps the pliers on each side of the robe's collar and tightens them down so that they're firmly gripping the material. "Never challenge an engineer," he remarks as he does so, "Because I have tools that make this easy to do without touching you. The rope keeps it easy to find the pliers, which have a good grip. And the scissors ... well, the belt won't last long to them. So it's snip then yank."
"But.. uh.. what if I..." Tracy says, and then reaches up to one of the pliers and tries to unclamp it.
"That's why I brought the gloves," Jason notes, seemingly unconcerned, "But I also have more rope. I could just tie you up. Or get a hose and soak you with cold water, for that matter. There are plenty of solutions..."
"Yeah, but.. you'd never do something that drastic, right?" Tracy asks, thinking of a way to perfectly block Jason's attempts. She can't give in on the first challenge, not when she can't really lose.. although the attempts do sound scary.
"I had to deal with your mother. Do you really think I wouldn't?" Jason asks, grabs the scissors, and tries to cut the belt!
Tracy squeaks and tries to jump away!
clip! The belt parts, but the robe is still on around Tracy's shoulders.
Jason tosses his scissors over his shoulder.
With the scissors tossed, Tracy sees an opening.. and rushes towards Jason! He might claim he can just close his eyes, but if she presses right up against him, he'd have to feel it! So she tries to hug him!
Most guys look happy when they're hugged. Jason just ... sighs. Since they were near the sink, well ... Jason reaches around her as if to return the hug. Instead, he grabs the sprayer in one hand and puts the other on the faucet control. Lips quirked up in amusement, he tries to tuck the nozzle into the back of the robe collar, squeeze the handle ... then turn the water on.
FWOOSH The hose floods the back of her clothes and the bathrobe with icy cold water.
Tracy's expression goes from 'gotcha' to 'oh no!' in a blink.
The girl pushes back on Jason then, and holds her arms out as she grits her teeth from the cold! Without the belt, it's clear she's got her regular clothes on underneath, but now they're starting to darken from the water and there's nothing to protect her midriff at all.
So Jason kneels down, grabs the hem of the robe, then yanks upward as he stands to entangle the girl further, to maybe even yanking the robe off!
The partly Chinese, partly Hispanic, mostly Caucasian girl seems distracted from the challenge by the shock of bitingly cold water sleeting down her back. A twist here, pull here, and-- to Jason's surprise, little resistance from Tracy -- the robe's off, leaving her with her regular clothes (now soaking wet).
The now unanchored hose clatters on the floor, spraying water in every direction.
"You play mean!" Tracy accuses, and since she's right there.. lunges for the hose.
Jason tosses the wet robe to the side and since Tracy is going for the hose ... well he reaches over and tries to turn the water off. "I did warn you I would use a hose," he points out.
Just as Tracy has Jason lined up... The water flow dies. She's left pointing the nozzle at him.
"I thought you were bluffing," Tracy says through chattering teeth. "W-was that the only b-b-bathrobe?" she asks. Luckily wet Spandex isn't any more embarrassing than dry Spandex.
RIU, having been watching the whole altercation, bounces up and down cheering its master's victory! It manages a perfect rendition of an old-style videogame 'victory' theme.
"Only robe," Jason says as he reaches over and plucks the nozzle from Tracy's hands. "But there are blankets," he adds, then offers his gloved hand to help her back to her feet. "Now .. if you're done being silly ... are you okay?" he asks.
"Freezing," Tracy admits, taking the hand and.. dripping as she hugs herself. "Do you have a c-clothes dryer?" She eyes RIU for his choice of music.
"The laundry equipment is in the lab area," Jason admits as he helps her up. "Would you have preferred I take it easy on you?" he asks. "I always fight to win."
"Well, I'll remember that now," the girl remarks. "Are you going to claim a victory prize or anything?"
"Yes, I want to get a full body scan of you, preferably without clothing," Jason says as he releases her hand and heads towards the lab. He waves for her to follow.
"A.. wait, like.. a VR Scan or.." Tracy asks, still hunched over a bit from the cold as she follows.
"Well, if you ever want me to make significant modifications to that suit, I'll need the dimensions I have to work with," Jason remarks as they enter the lab. "You can bring it later, just wireframe. I won't ask to scan you myself."
RIU hops into the air and glides after Jason and Tracy.
"I don't have access to a scanner like that," Tracy says, only hissing a little through her teeth now. If she'd been barefoot it would probably be a lot worse. "Where's your scanner? You've already watched me do yoga so it's not like I have anything left to be modest about."
"In the lab, along with the rest of my equipment. I'll go get you a blanket," Jason says and heads towards a door in the back of the lab. As he walks, he waves towards one of the dozen or so large cylindrical tubes in this room that have doors on them. It honestly looks like something out of a horror movie, truth be told. Most of his equipment tends to be salvaged or hand-built, after all.
Tracy stands next to one still shivering. "You use these things often or just have them for the ambience?" she asks.
Jason doesn't answer that. He disappears into his private bedroom and once more Tracy is left alone with RIU
RIU perches on top of one of the tubes. Beep!
The girl tries jumping up and down a bit and doing belly-crunches to generate heat, until she can get out of the wet clothes.
"Do you give your mother this much trouble? Or am I just special?" Jason asks as he returns with a 'fleece' style blanket. He tosses it towards Tracy.
"You think this is trouble?" Tracy says, completely disappearing into the blanket, which eventually disgorges out soggy Spandex, a pair of socks and the running shoes. "I'm sure if any of your frie.. peers knew what was going on, they'd be cheering for you right now."
"Like I said earlier, only two people have ever been close to me," Jason comments as he collapses into one of his rolling chairs and spins himself around slowly. "So what would they cheer on? It's not like anything would happen."
Tracy's head finally emerges from the blanket. At least her hair didn't get soaked. It takes another minute before she's used the blanket to soak up all the remaining dampness. "It'd be revenge on all the pretty girls that ignored them in high school or something," she suggests. "So... Do I just stand in that tube?"
"Yes. Don't mind the tentacles," Jason remarks as he fires up one of his terminals.
"Is that another squid joke?" Tracy says, then takes a deep breath before stepping out of the blanket and into the tube o' doom. "Do I.. hold my arms up or anything?"
The tube itself is empty. No tentacles or other disturbing devices to feel her up are inside. "Just hold still. On the count of three. 1 ... 2 ... " and there's a blinding flash of light! "Three. You can step out now. I'm done. The data is being processed," Jason says.
"That's it?" Tracy asks, and brushes at her skin to see if the outer layer was just vaporized or anything.
"What were you expecting?" Jason asks, his back is turned to her, at least, so she can get back in the blanket without him seeing.
"Lasers, like at the front door," she says, "And having to spread my limbs and stuff." She bundles up in the blanket again, and asks, "Your laundry system isn't homemade is it?"
"Of course it is. Why?" Jason asks. He waves towards the western wall. There are two machines there that look like industrial mixers that have been heavily modified. "As for lasers, that's just for show. Real scanners don't do anything noticeable usually."
Carrying the damp clothing to the indicated wall, Tracy spends exactly thirty seconds studying the machinery before she asks, "Can you show me how to use these?"
"Haven't you done laundry before?" Jason asks. His head shakes and he pushes himself back out of his chair and heads over to Tracy. He opens the machine on the left. "Wet clothing goes in here. You close the door, then turn the dial to mulch and press the button," he explains. "The new labels are on backorder."
Tracy does as directed, looking uncertain the whole time. "If something goes wrong, I'll have to either wear the suit home or some of your clothes. The one at home just has one hopper."
"That sounds very boring," Jason notes. The machine fires to life and ... it is rather loud. But through the small porthole in the door, it does look like it is drying the clothing.
The girl steps back nervously. "Well.. can I see the scan result?" she asks.
RIU peeks out from behind the machine. "Breep!"
"You don't know what you look like?" Jason asks. "I guess you can. It should just be saved wireframe. I don't go around collecting nude images." So ... he heads back to his desk.
"It's not skinned?" Tracy asks, sounding disappointed. "And while I may be limber, even I don't get to see myself from every angle. What if there's a mole or scar or something I don't know about? But at least I'm glad I depilated this week.."
"I didn't need to know that. Now I'll imagine you as some great hairy beast," Jason remarks as he rolls his eyes. "Also, this is Kimon, my main red-class processor. Kimon, this is Tracy. She is ... mildly crazy," he adds as he gestures towards the robotic fox. he taps on an archaic keyboard and brings up, as he said, a wire-frame model of Tracy, sans clothing, on one of the ancient mist-holo projectors on the desk.
Kimon inclines its head. "Acknowledged," it responds.
"It's a red-class? Wow.." Tracy says, before being drawn to the wireframe. "This is accurate?" she asks. "Because.. oh, right, they were reacting to the cold. Nevermind. And you can imagine me any way you like, because... I don't have a good comeback. And speaking of which, are you going to let me come back here to visit? I could use this wireframe to build the costume skin on..."
"I can't afford a quantum class," Jason notes. "Now, as for visiting ... I suppose. I guess you'll want to use the holo-modeler to build your costume on the wireframe, then. I'll have to set you up a private terminal, separate from my building network."
The girl bounces a bit, then pauses to get a better grip on the blanket (it's a bit more to handle than a towel, after all). "If you teach me, I can help with you other things," she suggests. "Or do your shopping for you. Make you dinner, sometime?"
A sudden rhythmic thumping comes from the direction of the clothes dryer.
"I'm not sure how much I can trust you with my personal projects ... " Jason starts to say. "Oh for the love of ... RIU got in the dryer!" He pushes himself out of the chair then runs for the machine!
Dragon blue eyes peer mournfully (and dizzily) out of the porthole!
"I didn't realize he was in my pants!" Tracy claims, running after Jason, albeit more carefully so she doesn't trip.
Jason slaps the cutoff switch with his hand to shut the machine down. He still has to wait for it to stop spinning before he can open the door, though. "What are you doing?" he chides the little dragon once he can yank the door open!
RIU wobbles out of the machine shedding clothes (which fall back into it) and clings to Jason like a limpet! Breep!
"You ... grr. I can't yell when you give me googly eyes," Jason complains at the clinging dragon.
The miniature dragon makes a peculiar sort of noise, a beep-boop that drops down the register.
Unable to help it, Tracy giggles and covers her mouth with a blanket-clad hand. "Pets are fun, I see," she comments. "What are you going to work on now, while I wait for my clothes to dry?"
"I ... can't tell you," Jason finally says, then sighs. "Which means ... probably nothing. I have projects that are super-secret."
"So.. what do I do then while I wait?" the girl asks. "I can't wash dishes in a blanket."
"Well ... what skills do you have?" Jason finally asks when he seemingly comes up blank. "Can you weld, solder, diagnose failing circuits, or program?"
"I can do VR scaping and sculpting, algorithmic world design.. uh.. if I had my chipware with me, that is," Tracy answers. "Welding and soldering can't be too hard, right, if I have one of those big aprons?"
"Or I could teach you some yoga, or give a demonstration," the girl adds, as a fallback.
Jason rubs his neck. "No, it isn't as easy as wearing an apron," he says. His brow furrows for a few seconds, then he asks, "Would you want to watch some extracted recordings of what actually happened in the diadem? I downloaded 'memories' from RIU some years back."
"Wow, I didn't know anyone could record that stuff!" Tracy says, smiling. Although that smile fades a few notches. "I'm not in them, am I? I mean the other me, Tracer, when she went all AI."
The mini-dragon seems to have recovered. It lifts its head at the mention of its name. Bedoop?
"Well, yes, you and ... other you are in it. We all are," Jason admits.
"Even Sasha is," Jason adds.
"Okay," Tracy says, trying to sound solemn about it. "Are they vid or VR? Will I feel like I'm RIU?"
"Vid format currently. I don't mess with VR much," Jason admits, "And you don't have to, it was just a suggestion."
"I'm curious," Tracy admits. "I mean, this is stuff that turned my whole life - maybe the whole world - upside down. And my mom won't talk to me about it, but she gets a weird gleam in her eye when I ask."
"It's a lot to watch. you'll only get to see a bit before your clothing is dry," Jason admits, "But it has been cataloged and labeled by event. Kimon, can you take her back to the conference room and bring up our event archives for the Fracture event and its leadup in Arcadia?"
"You aren't going to watch with me?" Tracy asks. "What if I have questions?"
"I wasn't planning to. I was going to resume my work," Jason says.
"Understood," the kimono-garbed robot intones. It glides toward the conference room through the kitchen, doors opening silently.
"I guess we'll save that for after dinner sometime," Tracy says, following the kitsune-computer-bot and dragging a lot of fleece behind her.
"I've probably just handed her more nightmare fuel," Jason mutters as he heads back to his work table. "RIU can you fetch me the propulsion band I was working on earlier? I think it ended up in the rafters somewhere. I've almost got the acceleration curve stable. Thanks." Were he a normal guy, he would be after Tracy in a minute ... because, well, naked, and legal, girl in a blanket! She might need someone to hug onto. But no, this doesn't even cross his mind. He's lucky Randall isn't here or he would have been asked to surrender his 'man' card.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2010-11-24_jason-investigates.htmlIt's been several months since Tracy charmed - or as Jason would have it, bullied - her way into his life, and between various jobs and having Tracy on his hands demanding to know everything there is about security systems, he hasn't had much time free. Today however, is a clean slate, with Tracy called away by her parents for an 'important' meeting of some kind.
Kimon methodically sorts out the latest collection of scrap parts into usable containers, while RIU snoozes atop an old-fashioned - some would say 'precyberlithic' - lava lamp.
Jason flops down into his chair and leans back with a loud creak. After a long sigh and a rub of his hands over his face, he says, "Right. Now that the three accounts are finished up and I don't have psycho-child hanging around I can finally look into something that has been bugging me. That suit was fine, other than that silly infection. Someone wasted a lot of money throwing it out. So ... I think I'm going to go find its previous owner. There was that site we recorded that her 'fun buns' pictures were uploaded too..." He cracks his knuckles as his lips curl in a bemused smirk. Nothing is more relaxing than being nosy.
To Jason's recollection, there are several files that may be of interest: the Soroyama 3.3 skin program (cleansed of the virus), the video recording of the prior wearer, the Irongrip Security search results, and the ID of the sneaksuit. There's a 'home base' URL for the virus itself as well.
"I'm sure the 'public' records won't mind me using an extracted facial picture to cross reference with all issues ids, eh?" Jason remarks to the snoozing dragon. "Or maybe a few private records too. And any high-school 'yearbooks' for reference, for that matter..."
RIU wakes up. Meep? Its blue eyes resume their normal glow as it looks about to see what's caught Jason's attention, then up at him.
"Just hunting teenagers, RIU," Jason remarks. "And no, it's purely business!"
Whistling to himself, Jason brings up a holo-image of the face of the suit's last wearer. His fingers roll and flick as he begins marking out trace points on it to identify points of interest, from the bridge of the nose, to distances between eyes, ears, mouth, and lips. "Nothing quite like knowing how biometric scanners use identifying marks, eh?" he quips as he brings up links to the city-wide network, using online versions of class yearbooks as the initial source of facial data since it's public and open. Always use the legal way first ... then go illegal if it fails.
Kimon's eyes go from their idle-mode amber to active green. Displays light up, showing a kaliedoscope of human faces, revolving one after another through the search engine's filter, and then the words "Match Found" flash.
Amanda Whaley: age 19. Graduated from North Bend Magnolia-4 Private School. Sophomore at New York Quantechnic University. Major: Psychocosmetology. Daughter of Thomas Whaley, current Logistics Sergeant for Irongrip Security. Presently single, currently dating several charming young lads. Projected likelihood of romance-related violence in near future: 67.5%.
Jason waggles his fingers. "Well, Hellllllllllllo Amanda. Now, have you been a baaad girl lately?" he nearly cackles as his search now moves into criminal records searching to see if she even filed a complaint on the suit ... to if she has gone missing at all.
Secondary search agents loop in additional data: her home address, her dormitory address, contact information, recent MyUniverse blog entries which describe her as having had a 'total bummer of a time' at a recent costume party - apparently she had been planning some kind of major reveal and then had to scrub the project. Her last entry is dated some twenty minutes ago, so she's evidently still around and able to blog about it.
There's no record of a missing sneaksuit filed by the Whaleys.
However, her past criminal record does show fines paid for prior charges of shoplifting, vehicle theft and joyriding, and her academic record shows several counts of harassment of fellow students, for which she was suspended from school for some weeks. She appears to have felt relatively little remorse over the incidents.
"Heheheh," Jason goes, a common trope when he's feeling a bit mischievous. "Kimon, I need to establish an untracable link so I can leave some comments on Amanda's blog hinting at her suit to see how she replies," he notes. It's now that he sits up because as silly as he may act this is where it gets serious.
"Understood," Kimon repies. The androgynous fox-robot in a kimono sets aside the synthetic myomer bundles it was sorting and moves up to Jason's side. Its eyes blink to orange. "Reindeer Armada security protocol detected. Threat assessment: medium." One display clears to a rendition of the geometry of the MyUniverse virtual reality site: a well-guarded central data repository, branching out to a network of local data nodes scattered around the world, replicating data back and forth, and a finer feathering of access points for users.
"Bridge into one of the local data nodes. We'll use piggybacking to carry packets into the more secure sections of the network. The trick is, of course, correctly breaking the encryption patterns they use so we can modify packets without detection," Jason instructs as he sits back. Instead of typing, his focus goes to his direct implant, as the neural interface is far more efficient for this sort of thing.
Each node on the graph shows up with a colored disc in several layers, representing the type and quality of the defenses at that particular computer system, and labels as to their apparent function. MyUniverse being a relatively public and open system, it's easy to see how it works, whereas a high-grade corporate or military installation would shield all such workings behind an opaque firewall.
As Jason shifts his focus, the outside world goes away, replaced by starry space all around him - cyberspace, each star a system on the Internet. Perspective works oddly in this space, functioning both in physical distance and logical distance. From a distance, MyUniverse appears to be a constellation, but up close the stars become world-spanning, reflecting the actual latencies between them. Interface windows appear around the edge of Jason's peripheral vision, showing details of the connection established up to this point.
The local access node grows larger as Jason approaches, identifying itself as "MyUniverse Local Access Node 177 - North Bend Central." Multitudes of green lines streak away from it to the thousands of people obsessively updating their own status and checking on others' journals, while a massive (at this data-scale) trunk leads away to the regional databank. If he makes a mistake and crashes the node, they're going to notice...
Jason resists the urge to cackle and declare himself a God here; even though thanks to his choice of computers and casing, his shape is more foxlike; reminiscent of the 'midway' form his friend Inari has. It's still different in that it looks more natural than stylized as hers did, but the similarity is there. He would claim it is because a fox is sly ... but it may also be that he misses someone he hasn't contacted in some time. In any event, he goes about his work professionally as the 'universe' and its constellations all have meaning. It's a song, or perhaps a dance ... to weave between nodes and intercept data.
Panels float around the node, each depicting a cartoonish reindeer in green or red harness - an oddly Christmassy touch, but perhaps MyUniverse is saving the actually threatening-looking security for its internal systems. These are its security systems, filled with tools to identify, authenticate, and pass through the multitudes of user requests.
"Time to dig a few 'dens'," Jason remarks to himself. It's audible to him, even if it's not really speaking. His form dances along the first data path, heading to the first 'fence' to tunnel under.
The ring of orbiting panels slows as he approaches, trying to focus its attention on him.
Jason is nothing more than a fleeting shadow mixed in with a data stream as it zips past the first layer. It's using an old encoding algorithm, easily identified and cracked with the right system. He's part of the first stream now, buried within its bits. Now can he weave into the next one?
The orbiting panels waver, then turn transparent - they are no longer an obstacle to him. Wait, what's this - some past administrator logged in remotely from a public terminal! The data trail he left behind should prove handy. Kimon's ability to analyze and project from data augment Jason's cyber-senses, producing a smoke trail that leads toward the next level of defenses.
'Nose to the path' you could say as the hunter stalks the trail left by one of the administrators. This is ... well, just what he always tells people. The weakest link in security is always the staff as this clearly shows. Soon he is a reflection of that administrator, his virtual 'skin' rippling with the signature of admin who 'left the gate open'. He doesn't even need to hide as he slips past the next layer, but ... he does anyway. Never let your guard down and always go for the overkill. It's better than being caught...
"Welcome back, Administrator," says the local (very unintelligent) AI that presides over the data access node as he enters its space. Cyberspace warps and reforms around him, becoming an endless library of books, a multitude of tiny robots scurrying hither and thither with new pages to be tucked into them; the AI itself looks like a copper-skinned female built into the desk, wearing librarian-style glasses - the style itself has persisted in media even though it's trivial for anyone to get vision-correction treatment these days.
"Give me the data pages for customer Whaley, Amanda," Jason instructs the system and within moments have access to her entire blog, from status to everything she has ever posted. Before he locks it down, he searches it for private entries, in case she decided to write about her suit, but lock it to herself as the only reader. Failing there, well, he has plans.
Amanda Whaley's MyUniverse journal looks like a typical (if old fashioned) book on the outside, but the pages on the inside are moving videos. It takes a little fiddling with the search feature, but Jason finds it - a deleted entry!
"Oh, Amanda, nothing is ever deleted on the 'net," Jason all but purrs when he finds the entry. Just restore the flag to mark is as live instead of deleted and ... view!
"OMG! My dad is the best ever," Amanda says excitedly. She's cute and fluffily blonde, her hair done in an asymmetrical style long and hiding her face on one side, short and cut to a razor point on the other. "He brought home a-- well, it's going to be a surprise at the party, but I'll tell you this, it's going to make all the other suits around look like kids drew on them with crayons! Thanks Marty, that site you showed me is going to be really handy..."
"Okay, so ... she's ... goofy," Jason remarks, amused. It's now his turn to write an entry and he does so. One that will be right on the front of her 'page' when she logs in, visible to only her. 'Your account has been locked for questionable and possible illegal activity regarding skin suit program copyright violations. To unlock, contact our technical support at the following link to discuss this matter," he enters, then establishing that link as a tunnel back to a anonymized chat server that will contact him when she connects. He then 'closes' the book and flips the 'latch' to lock her account from her being able to post until she contacts him. It's sad that people still fall for these types of simple redirect but ... they do. And she has done something illegal, which he cited ... so ... "And now we just 'disconnect' and wait!" he thinks.
The AI thanks Jason as he returns the book to its care, then hands it to a small floater robot which whisks it off to some nameless shelf in the recesses of MyUniverse.
"But before I go ... " Jason says, falling victim to something he hasn't done yet out of ... well, he just couldn't bring himself. But since he is here ... might see if Inari has her own site now...
"Inari?" The AI tilts its head to one side. "One moment, sir. 12,517 entries found. How would you like to refine your search?"
"Inari, music sensation. Entered the scene four years ago, just after the incident at the first Avatar's amusement park," Jason mutters to himself as he enters more and more narrowing information to identify the specific Inari, including connections to a woman named Akiko.
The book appears! ... It appears to be a Voya Multimedia creation, documenting Inari's rise to the singing sensation of the musical world, with a multitude of links to other Voya music, movie, and interactive drama stars, along with a myriad of interesting facts about her preferences, recent activities - she had eel wrapped in bacon sushi-style for breakfast - and recent boyfriends - currently single, having kicked her boyfriend out the hatch of a moving aircar; he survived thanks to landing on another aircar nearby. It offers a 24/7 'All Inari all the time!!!' channel, showing selected video from one of the cameras that surround her constantly.
Jason ... isn't quite sure how to take her kicking some poor guy out of an aircar. That brings back odd memories, for certain. Even though he knows he shouldn't ... he searches for any mention of his name in the official pages.
There isn't any - but there is a curious absence. She uses generalities when talking about her past - a childhood where other children teased and bullied her, where she was forced to sneak around, and where she managed to give them their comeuppance now and then through cleverness, and a dramatic escape from the heart of the Incursion from her kidnappers to the safety of Los Angeles. And she never talks about her first boyfriend, but admits she has had one. Fan sites are rife with suppositions about who this could have been.
"How did you break up with him?" asks one reporter. Inari's smile is crooked as she gives the reporter a look beneath dark-lashed eyes. She says only, "Who says I did?"
"I doubt that was ever me," Jason mutters to himself as he re-reads the entries, "We were never .. well ... you know." He has to stop himself there and shake his head and complain, "And why am I talking to myself." He almost closes the book ... then decides to do something stupid. Even though ie may never reach her, he opens up one of the 'Send Inari a message!' chats and writes, "You were always destined for something great. Even when the heart of darkness held you in its grasp amongst the worlds, enthralled against the light, there was hope. I'm glad you held onto that air car back then and found your path to freedom. Shine brightly." He doesn't leave a name, nor any way to trace it. If it reaches her ... she might realize who wrote it. If not ... well she's probably happier anyway. He closes that book and returns it to the 'manager'. "Time to go," he remarks as he slides back into the data stream and out the way he came.
The message appears in gold on the page, the sender only 'Anonymous'.
Cyberspace recedes around Jason's viewpoint, MyUniverse dwindling into a constellation, then a star, and then space fades from black into grey into... The real world around him. Kimon's eyes fade from warning orange to a calm green.
Not ten minutes later, while Jason's reviewing the myomer bundles that Kimon sorted out - most are old and showing signs of fatigue but there are some relatively fresh ones - his robot chimes. RIU perks up.
"Amanda?" Jason asks Kimon for confirmation.
A computer display lights up. "Incoming connection - Amanda Whaley."
Jason sets down the bundles he was working with and rolls his chair back over to his desk. "Link established. Anonymized chat multi-peer chat online. Text-only," he mutters to himself as he establishes the link.
"MyUniverse Support Session #7185624," announces the lying chat system. Several more lines follow, emulating the actual service, and then Amanda's first line of text shows up. "OMG what kind of primitive tech support system is this you don't even have VOICE OMG OMG"
"This system is designed to keep professionalism and bias out of dealing with the matter at hand, Miss Whaley. Voice and images inject emotion, text does not," Jason types his reply. "We are partnered with many companies around the world to bring our users the very best in products and service. We must also take any complaints they lodge against our customers seriously. Particularly complains that involve the theft of intellectual property. We received a report that you downloaded an illegal copy of the Amaranth skin and your entries seem to corroborate the report."
"What? That's totally unpossible," Amanda retorts, though her actual typing is filled with shorthand and typos. "Show me the evidence!"
"I have not include the link out of respect for your privacy, but since you wish to be combative," Jason types, ... then includes the link to the hacker site her pictures were uploaded to. "The skin you downloaded was infected with a virus known as the Emperors New Clothes. It was through this virus that your theft was tracked. Do you deny that is you in the images, Miss Whaley?"
There's dead silence from the other end.
The chat window fills with "OMG"s one after another, and then after a bit of teenage sputtering, "PLEASE DELETE THE PICTURES OMG THAT IS SO UNFAIR FML FML FML"
"As I noted earlier, we take all complaints seriously. First, intellectual theft is a serious crime and carries stiff penalties. However, the owner of the property informed us that you obviously suffered for your actions based on those pictures. Also, they realize it has likely rendered your skin suit useless. They have offered to remove the software from the suit for you if you will ship it to them and will not pursue charges against you," Jason types, knowing full well she doesn't have it any more.
"OMG please tell me you can delete the pictures," Amanda types, though her reply is in all caps and suffused worse than ever with teenage chat epithets. "I'll do anything just give me time I'll do anything... I have money! Can't we just forget this ever happened?"
"This isn't blackmail, Miss Whaley. The owners merely wish to protect their property," Jason replies in cold text. "If you are willing to ship the suit to one of their facilities, they will cleanse it and absolve you of any legal liabilities. Furthermore, they will try to remove the posted pictures, as infected skin programs harm their reputation as well, as I am sure you can imagine."
"I, um, I, give me time, I put it away someplace safe, I gotta find it, just get started with the delete and I'll get it to you, okay?" Amanda babbles.
"Have you been distributing copies of the program, Miss Whaley?" Jason now writes. "Is that why you require time?"
Amanda types panickedly - if ever you could hear hyperventilating through text, now's the time - "No, no, it's nothing like that, I just put the suit away someplace safe so it couldn't lock up on anyone, it was horrible, I couldn't breath, I had no idea it was uploading the pics, I feel violated, OMG please help me!"
"Calm down and we shall try. What model of skin suit were you using?" Jason types. "It will help prep the facility for the proper cleansing procedure."
"Um, um, um, it was a sneaksuit! Real official, military kinda thing," Amanda types. She identifies it correctly as a Second Skin suit, but blanks on the model number, typing in several and asking if that sounds right after each one.
"I cannot validate model numbers, but I will pass these on. You do understand that civilian possession of military grade equipment is also a crime? Did you have the proper permits filed for it?" Jason asks.
By bits and pieces, Jason manages to worm the story out of her. It seems her father works in the logistics department of Irongrip Security. She claims to have him firmly wrapped around her finger, and so when she revealed she needed a high-end suit with optic camoflauge, he came through by 'borrowing' a sneaksuit from work and doctoring the records so it wouldn't show, at least until the end-of-year audit. After her trial run ended so disastrously, she claims at first she "put it away safely", then finally breaks down and admits she threw it into a disposal chute and has no idea where it is... And her father has been hinting for weeks now that it'd be nice if she finished whatever project she had that needed it so he could get it back into the system. She offers 'all her savings' - apparently N$400 or so - if the administrator can make those pictures go away and intercede with her with the Amaranth copyright holders to get her time 'til she can wheedle her father into finding another suit, that ca
can be returned in its place.
"This is all highly irregular. Numerous crimes have been committed here, Miss Whaley. You have put your father in a difficult position, in addition to your own legal situation. The copyright holders will do what the can to purge those pictures from the site. In addition, they will not pursue legal action at this time," Jason types. "I hope this has taught you a lesson, Miss Whaley. Being flippant with other peoples' properly, be it material or data, is traceable. They will log the numbers you have provided and if the suit turns up again, they will contact you. And if I were you, Miss Whaley, I would save that money and use it to pay your father for the suit so he can replace it in the inventory at his work. We will now unlock your account. Have a good day, Miss Whaley."
"This is so unfair," Amanda despairs. "Cut me a break please, this is the worst day of my life! Like being stuck in that suit for fifteen minutes wasn't bad enough! Anything you can do would be sooooo appreciated..." It's easy to imagine her taking a deep breath and leaning forward. What is it with these teenagers?
"And now you understand why we do not use video, Miss Whaley. Sit upright," Jason types. And with that, he disconnects the chat and unlocks her account.
"Looks like I have to go moonlight as a good samaritan and delete those pictures," Jason laments, "And snoop a bit, perhaps."
The website for 'Face Reality' seems to be significantly more protected than MyUniverse's access node - it's shot through with the telltale red of high-grade security. Furthermore, there's only one access point for it, and no clue what lies behind the facade.
"Impressive," Jason muses as he examines the security for nearly an hour. This is a dangerous game ... but when has Jason ever really backed down from a challenge? He decides to at least attempt it, with instructions to Kimon to sever the neural link if it becomes life-threatening.
The node manifests in cyberspace before Jason-fox - it's a giant clown's face, but instead of mirth, it carries a malevolent air, surrounded by skeins of orbiting razorwire. Unlike MyUniverse, there are very few lines threading to it, appearing briefly, then fading away. It's not a popular website, and that will make it harder to pretend to be a harmless user.
With these sorts of systems, it is better to do a divide and multi-'attack' so to speak, to make it appear like a surge of activity, to hide the entrance of someone with more ... dangerous intentions. He's had to do this before for clients ... and it has never come cheap. Why he is doing this now for some stupid teenager ... bah. He's getting soft in his 'old age'.
Something seems odd to Jason-- wait. While the website is publicly accessable, protecting the inside core are three levels of razorwire defenses, blurring in place every few seconds. That's the telltale sign of one-time pads being used to encrypt sessions to the administrative core. This will be an especially hard ststem to crack. At least the Armor-ICE in use will hamper the system's own attempts to track Jason back, since it has to re-encrypt its connection at those times.
"This seems a bit extreme for some embarrassment site used to get people to see reality," Jason muses as his blunt 'muzzle' rolls in thought. "Now I'm curious. Time to see if I can penetrate this ... or not."
It's tricky to dodge and slip under razorwire that seems to blur and shift as he approaches, but somehow ... he manages it and glides past the first later without injury. His 'breathing' here is slow and calm as he focuses on the next. A simple attack this time, keep shields...
The remaining layers of razorwire shift in orbit slightly. They sense someone nearby, but they can't be sure where.
The next layer proves harder ... Jason glides and darts, trying to find a hole ... but nothing makes itself apparent quite yet...
Just as Jason thinks he's managed to find a hole in the razorwire, a previously unseen tendril whipcracks him from the other side! His first level of shields, formerly a bright gold, cracks and becomes translucent.
As Jason tests the system, several feints in and out leave him just avoiding nasty lashes of security code.
The system fakes a vulnerability to lure Jason in... And then it closes the noose around him! He activates his emergency disconnect, but electricity crackles brightly around him like foxfire.
"Kimon! Protocol Line Splinter!" Jason tries to order his system, breaking his data pattern up into thousands of fragments to confuse the system long enough to completely disengage.
Jason's apparent form splits into hundreds, no, thousands of little foxes all exactly alike. Arcs of red lightning crackle after him, chasing each one down. Pop! Pop pop pop! But the real one is just a step ahead, and as cyberspace greys out, fades away from sight... One last bolt cracks hard against his mind, sending him reeling from the chair.
Some moments later he awakens to RIU licking his face worriedly.
"No dippy kid is worth a lobotomy," Jason complains when his eyes open and he finds he has a slight headache. "Especially a free job. That was stupid, I should research that group more before I try that again. See if I can find who works on their security..."
RIU mreeeps! and noses at Jason, as if to scold him for getting it all worried.
"I know, I should know better than to be nice to people," Jason agrees with RIU and pats its head "I'll be fine. I was just a bit cocky, is all."
The little dragon twines up in Jason's arms, then rests its chin on his shoulder.
"Kimon, background search please. Anything you can find on the group 'Face Reality', please," Jason mutters as he relines a bit in his chair.
The fox-robot chimes. One display becomes a scrolling list of news articles about cyberhacks claimed by this group, another shows the title page of their webpage, open to their mission statement. There are a thousand or more hacking groups like this, splashing their names across whatever open websites they can deface, screaming their proto-idealogies into whatever ears they cna make listen.
"For a group that seems a dime a dozen, they have a nasty system. Can you determine a list of handles that 'work' for the group, Kimon? Cross-check news articles against their site. Backtrace the name registry of their site too, not that it likely has anything," Jason mutters.
This particular group surfaced about a year ago, but for people who want to embrace reality, they seem awfully shy about giving away real identities. Their leader goes by the moniker 'Black Queen', and their other hacker handles seem to be chess-themed like 'Rogue Pawn' and 'Bishop'. The name registrar is anonymous and funded through electronic cash deposits once a year.
Jason is half-tempted to hack the registrar and delist them. But ... after his headache passes. "Food," he decides. He gets up and heads into his kitchen to make a sandwich.
The little dragon winds around Jason as he gets up, perching on his shoulders comfortably.
"Do you ever miss the others?" Jason asks the little dragon as he goes about making a simple ham and cheese sandwich. With mayo, even.
RIU nuzzles against Jason's head, as if to suggest there's only ever one person it needs in its life.
"Thanks," Jason remarks as he goes to sit at a small table with the sandwich and a glass of water. He sits there for a time, just eating quietly, lost in thought. "Has it really been four years since everything?" he finally asks the empty room. "Does time go so quickly? And why did you just have to look up Inari again? You've got plenty of projects to work on, that would just complicate things."
Kimon chimes. "Intrusion attempt detected," it announces. "Honeypot protocol engaged. Attempting to trace intruder."
"Of course," Jason growls, stuffs the remainder of his sandwich back into his mouth, then heads back to his lab and chair. "Type of attacking system and methods used, summary," he orders.
The trace displays on the screen. Unlike most commercial websites, Jason employs an extra layer of protection - a pseudo-system that pretends to be Reality Check's website, protected with just enough security to be convincing, while the real core lies beneath it. It is this system that the hacker is rooting around in, in the belief that Jason's system was 'a little tough to crack'; in the meantime, the system is slowly extending its probe back the way it came.
Jason leans forward as he watches the hacker root about. By watching its pattern, he can perhaps time the trace-back to speed it up...
Though it was bounced through a few proxy systems, the attack turns out to have been made textbook-style - and Jason wrote the textbooks. "Origin: Irongrip Security internal node 12," flashes the identifier on the screen.
"Well, well. Kimon, try to lock the system line attacking us and open a communication with the attacker, please," Jason says. "I wonder if this is 'dad' upset that I contacted his daughter. Though how he would have traced me ..."
The hacker's line freezes. A dialog pops up. "Establishing contact. Voice protocol... Established. Voice modulator... Established. Ready." Then a gruff voice. "What the devil-- hello? Who's this?"
"You have ten seconds to identify and explain yourself before I obliterate your node, and that of your entire subnet, Irongrip Security, node twelve. In addition, all activity has been recorded and signed for delivery to the appropriate authorities," Jason says calmly.
"What? Uh-- Sergeant Thomas Whaley, Irongrip Security. I believe the owner of this website may have information that could assist me in recovering a sneaksuit," the voice says. "Look, I'm not here to pick a fight, but if you found that sneaksuit, it's stolen property."
"Why do you believe I would have any knowledge of a stolen suit, Mister Whaley?" Jason asks as he leans back in his chair. "And more to the point, why are you willing to commit a crime in an attempt to recover it?"
Mr. Whaley audibly sighs. "Look, Second Skin gave me the access log for who'd stripped the suit serial," he says. "I backtracked the connection to here, and that wasn't easy, whomever ran the query was a real paranoid sonuva, but I've got a little skill myself, and nothing stays deleted forever in the digital universe, ya know?"
"No, it doesn't. I am part of a security firm, as you may have surmised, Mr. Whaley. I ran the number as part of an ongoing investigation I have going on that I cannot discuss due to client confidentiality. I do not have your suit," Jason remarks. "But, I do happen to know your boss. I do not think he would appreciate knowing that you are using his systems to perform illegal acts."
"Trigger-happy little..." The voice trails off into a mutter. "Anyway, I'd be real appreciative if we could get it back and no one needs to raise a fuss. I can arrange for a little finder's fee if it were to turn up, no questions asked."
There's a pause. "Are you in trouble, Mr. Whaley?" jason asks as he sits upright for the moment. "I surmise that you were in charge of the suit and it was under your watch that it was lost? And if so, how long do you have before you are in a ... dangerous position?"
"It's got to turn up before Dec. 20," Mr. Whaley avers, naming a date about a month away. "Sooner is better, but so far I've been able to shuffle missions so no one ever needs all of the sneaksuits at once. God only knows how long that'll last..."
"Right. I will keep that in mind as my case progresses. If I find anything, I will contact you. I do know where to find you," Jason says, "Good day." He waves his hand across his throat in a slash to indicate to Kimon to cut the connection.
"I'll pay--" The line shuts down.
"I somehow doubt Tracy is doing to part with her new toy so easily, yet ... " Jason mutters and rubs his forehead, "This could mean a man's life. It looks like I may need to find Tracy a replacement so that one can go back. I wonder if I can pull any favors with the military for my help during the whole Avatar's core business."
(At one point in the months that passed between Jason's traumatic first encounter with Tracy and Cadena's arrival in the scheme of things, Randall and Jason caught each other up on what had happened...)
Jason should send Tracy to live with Randall, or something.
Randall grins, "I can teach her how to flirt better!"
Jason doesn't need that! He has a bad enough time fighting off daydreams about someone else flirting.
"Well, what would you want me to teach her then?" Randall scratches his head curiously.
"How to behave!" Jason complains
Randall points out, "And in what way have I ever been a poster child for good behavior?"
"You're a cop. You can at least pretend," Jason points out
Randall admits, "I was never a really good cop!"
"Bullcrap," Jason retorts.
"Have you looked at my cop school grades?" Randall points out. "I did good on the technicals, but I just barely passed procedurals and attitude training!"
"What, you failed donut eating 101, and how to be a complete prat 302?" Jason asks.
Randall shuffles a foot. "... yes."
Jason snerks
Randall laughs. "Seriously, buddy, I got by on charms and good looks. If you want her to behave better, have you thought about sending her to room with Akiko?"
"I don't even know where she is," Jason admits.
Randall shakes his head. "Head down in your inventions again? Well I'll send you her contact info. She's still in the area, surprisingly enough."
"She is? I figured she would be near Inari," Jason admits, "Since Inari is her avatar technically."
Randall rubs his chin. "She looked kinda funny when I asked about that. I didn't want to pry, maybe you'll have better luck."
"Seriously?" Jason asks.
Randall grins. "Yeah, you're kind of... The doctor who brought her and Inari into this world, you know? It's a Creator thing."
"She was from this world," Jason points out, "And you were the big hero. I was tech support."
Randall shakes his head. "We did it together, Jason. If it were just me and Holly there, this world would be lookin' a lot more pixelly!"
"So, you didn't start dating her as all heroes are expected to?" Jason asks.
Randall shakes his head. "Holly got back together with Mark! Seems like she saw him in a new light after the whole adventure. And Akiko wanted to learn to live on her own, not, y'know... Defined by other people and what they wanted her to be." He grimaces. "Blake Forester put a whole new spin on that."
"But hey, I'm okay, there's this cute new agent in the force," Randall says with a wink.
Jason teases, "But what would she want with someone who can't even properly eat a donut?"
"I'll just have to order tacos instead," Randall jokes. "Can't go wrong with those! ... Wait. That's not an invitation to prove me wrong, Jason."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2010-11-28_tracy-and-cadena.htmlThe previous night, Holly and Mark called to make sure Tracy would be there, ostensibly to pick her up for lunch. Now the appointed hour is drawing near... And there she is, right on time at the door.
Holly, a half Chinese, half Hispanic woman, has added a few lines over the years to her face that Tracy doesn't remember ... But sometimes absence will give you a fresh look at people you look at but never really see because they're around all the time. She's dressed informally, which for the VP of Security for Avatars LLC, means a black jumpsuit and business jacket with the A-star swoosh logo over the breast pocket, concealing a small handgun.
The heavy-set Caucasian with the worried look following her is Mark, her then and now husband who works in Marketing's legal department, and the white dog with the odd blue face markings is... News to Tracy.
Holly stops at the door and taps the intercom button. "Hello, Tracy! Are you ready to go?"
Tracy throws on a light jacket over her casual clothes, unsure if they're leaving the Tower or not, grabs her purse and thumbs open the door. "I'm ready mom.." she says, then blinks as she notices the canine. "You guys got a... dog?" she asks.
The large white dog's ears perk, and he looks expectantly at the door, cocking his head ever so slightly to one side curiously.
"Well, it's a long story," Holly says, smiling at her daughter fondly. "I'll explain on the way."
The teenager closes the door behind her, and gives her mother an odd look. "So.. you've decided to replace me already, with someone more obedient, right?" she asks, only half in jest.
Mark laughs. "We'd miss your streak of rebelliousness," he admits.
Holly grins. "I have plenty of children like that already," she teases. "They're called 'employees'."
Tracy can't help but laugh along with her parents. It's something she'd forgotten they could all do together. "Okay, where to for lunch?" she asks.
The dog's tail wags slightly. Perhaps he's managed to pick up the meaning of the word "lunch."
Their aircar awaits on a nearby public landing pad, down the hall and out to a skyway. It's just as Tracy remembers it, an Icarus Cloud model 7 car, made two years ago, silver-gray coloring, down to the stuffed squirrel toy hanging from the dashboard mirror. "The Lucky Seven Dragons," Holly says. A Chinese restaurant they've been to many times.
"I didn't think you could bring a dog into a restaurant?" Tracy asks, as she climbs into the back seat. She looks at the canine, trying to figure out its breed. Samoyed? Shina-Ibu? A mix? That blue doesn't look like a dye-job.. and what's with the huge collar?
The dog bounds up to the aircar, then sniffs at it, at the landing pad around it, and at the air. He scans the surroundings, ears alert.
Mark jokes, "I'll just tint my mirrorshades and pretend he's my guide dog."
"Dear! It's all right, I specified we'd be bringing a pet in the reservation," Holly says. She nods to Cadena once he's given the all clear, then opens the doors for her family.
The large man winks. "Maybe I've been blinded by reading too much fine print!"
"What's his name?" Tracy asks as she gets in, always taking the seat behind her mother since it'll have the most leg-room.
After Mark, Cadena, and Holly get in, Holly lifts the aircar off. An inconspicuous light goes from amber to green as the skywalk and the Tower recede into the distance. "Tracy, this is Cadena. He's one of the prototypes of Avatar's new Real Life Companion program. Cadena, why don't you introduce yourself?"
Mark is sitting in the front passenger seat, which leaves Cadena in the other back passenger seat.
The dog ducks his head as the auto seat-belt restraint slides into place. He nods to Holly, then turns toward Tracy. "I am Cadena, a prototype Avatar companion, Metal type, at your service," he says clearly.
"He's.." Tracy starts to ask, then just stares at Cadena when he talks. She reaches out to tentatively pet his head. "Metal Type. Are you a cyborg? You look alive, I mean..."
Holly guides the aircar toward a different level of the Tower, where the black walls change to gold, dotted by greenery visible over the railing that keeps apartment-dwellers from falling off.
The dog leans obligingly into the head-pat. "'Metal type' refers to my elemental alignment, were we in the Avatars universe. It is a purely decorative term in the Real World. I am an artificial biological construct with some non-organic synthetic components, completely safe, yet technically within the definition of a 'cyborg.'"
"You're a talking dog," Tracy says, someone distantly, as if she can't really believe it. "Avatars is making talking dogs. What.. I mean.. you've got a real brain so.. are you still an AI? Dad, isn't this really pushing up against the replicant statutes?"
Mark shakes his head. "We've investigated and the laws are aimed at replicating humans in appearance. As long as the product doesn't identify itself as a human, or look like a human, there's no deception involved." He adds, giving Cadena an apologetic look over the shoulder of his chair, "Sorry, didn't mean to call you a 'product'. I'm just talking in general."
"We've been testing these prototypes over the past few years," Holly adds. "They're aimed at the upper end of the market, as bodyguards and assistants in circumstances where an actual bodyguard would be too conspicuous or intrusive. They're very popular with children, for instance."
"But.. he can talk," Tracy mutters, still absently petting Cadena. "And he has guard-dog training too?" She actually starts studying Cadena's paws next, to see how dog-like they really are - or if they can work like hands too!
The aircar banks toward the wall of the Tower. The Lucky Seven Dragons is barely visible at this distance; unlike many upscale restaurants, it doesn't have a big floating sign to direct diners in. There's just the mosaic of dragons on its outer wall to mark its location.
Cadena nods, looking as unoffended as a dog might, and obligingly offers up a large and somewhat oddly-shaped paw - but still a paw nonetheless, despite a larger-than-normal dewclaw, and somewhat more flexible toes. "I am also informed of all applicable laws regarding AI behavior and restrictions in the United States, its protectorates, and certain other nations."
"Can you.. uh.." Tracy leans in to whisper the rest into the dog's ear: "Can you use the potty like a person?"
"Just don't ask him to practice law, we couldn't afford the bar bond," Mark jokes.
"I can flush, too, and I even put the seat back down," Cadena answers.
Tracy smiles at that, then tries to get the image of why the dog would need the seat up out of her head. "So, you're out here for field testing?" she asks, wondering if the dog is actually smarter than she is.
The dog nods at this. "Your demographic is underrepresented in the field testing regimen so far, so this would be an excellent opportunity."
"And that's why I'm taking you to lunch," Holly says with a grin. She brings the aircar in to the restaurant.
"Oh.. so.. you're giving me Cadena then?" Tracy realizes, then immediately accuses, "and doing it here means you can charge lunch to your expense accounts I bet!"
Holly corrects, "Not giving, lending. He's still registered to Avatars LLC. Tax obligations on gifts, you know."
Mark sighs. "We're never going to break your mom of that cheapskate streak of hers," he says to Tracy.
"So.. you're handing me an awesome pet, but then you're going to take him away later?" Tracy asks, in her you've got to be kidding tone of voice.
"Thrifty!" Holly objects. She pops the door. "Well, not unless you've been bad."
The dog ear-perks at the word "awesome," and his tail wags slightly more vigorously as he disembarks. However, he corrects, "I believe the nature of the term is indefinite, until such time as I should be of no further use."
The formerly green light winks back to amber.
Outside of the car, Tracy hugs her windbreaker closed out of habit. "Unless I've been bad? So.. is Cadena going to be spying on me for you, or is his memory accessible somehow?"
Holly smiles at her daughter. "You know I'm teasing you, dear." Mark adds, "It's a standard clause of our beta-testing contracts. Avatars LLC reserves the right to recall testing units at any time for maintenance or to repair unforeseen defects, and we retain property rights to prevent resale to other persons previously unspecified in the contract. Not that you're just 'property'." This last as an aside to Cadena.
"I have to sign something, right?" Tracy asks, already sounding defeated. Her dad once made her sign a clause tying her allowance to keeping her room clean and doing chores. And had it notarized.
The dog nods, and looks around to make sure there is no one within earshot who might be alarmed at a talking dog just yet, and then adds, "'Spying' is not at all within my instructions, though I am required to keep basic notes that might be of use for testing purposes, and to give responses to help measure my performance. Also, I am required to answer questions truthfully to the best of my ability if asked by authorized Avatars LLC personnel, or the proper authorities, within the applicable laws regarding information given in confidence, or gathered without proper notification of surveillance."
"Well, just a formality," Mark soothes.
"Cadena.. please don't talk like that," Tracy requests quietly. "You sound like my dad."
Holly sighs. "Don't make our daughter sign something until we've had dessert, dear," she admonishes her husband.
Mark looks abashed. "Sorry. Work. You know how it is," he says.
The dog nods obediently, and sniffs the air again ... then just a little more deeply than might be required to just be alert for trouble, before he returns to looking about and taking in every little detail of his surroundings.
The maitre'd, an old Asian man of the beatific sort, bows to Holly and her family as they step inside the doors. "This way! The black cod is very good today, Ms. Trudeau," Mr. Yan says. "Ah! And your lovely Tracy is joining us today. Excellent! Wonderful!"
The girl bows to Mr. Yan and blushes a bit at the flattery.
Mr. Yan's gaze falls upon the white dog. "What is this? You don't think the meat we serve is fresh enough? Well, if the cook won't reel too hard from the insult, maybe I can importune him to do us a little favor." He winks - joking, of course. One hopes.
Holly blinks.
The dog just looks up at Mr. Yan, tail wagging, like a big dumb friendly white dog ought to.
Tracy nearly pops, her cheeks containing the bark of laughter.
The maitre'd laughs. "No, no, just kidding. We have a place all ready for your canine guest!" He leads the way around to the back of the restaurant, next to the kitchen. True to his word, they've got one of the low tables set out, with pillows on which the guests sit, and a mat for Cadena. A teapot steams, fragrant with jasmine tea.
Tracy sits down and crosses her legs yoga-style next to the mat for Cadena. "Is there a special diet Cadena has to follow?" she asks. She waits to see if Mr. Yan will give the companion a menu as well.
The maitre'd hands out menus to Holly, Mark, and Tracy as they seat themselves, then sets a fourth menu before Cadena. He bows low. "A waiter will be right with you! Promise."
Holly shakes his head. "He can eat what you do," she assures her daughter.
The well-trained dog seems comfortable in his spot, taking in all the sights and sounds of the restaurant. He looks a bit surprised at the sight of the menu in front of him, however, as that takes him a moment to register. He looks askance to Mrs. Trudeau.
Mark mutters something about 'Never can get used to these pillows' but he manages to wedge himself in, legs sticking under the table.
"Can you read it?" Tracy asks Cadena.
Holly whispers to Cadena, including Tracy, "Just point to what you want and Tracy wil order it for you. They're used to rich people who like to pamper their pets."
Cadena nods, as he scans the menu. He looks around warily, then slips one paw up on the table to flip it. (Apparently he can grab things, after a fashion, but just not very firmly or gracefully.)
Tracy is so fascinated by this, that it takes her a moment to realize she needs to look over the menu too. She remembers the comment about the cod. She could never manage to prepare fish on her own, so decides to get that. I hope Cadena can survive on pasta and frozen waffles and hot dogs okay, she thinks. She may have to really start learning to cook actual meals now. Jason might appreciate that as well.
The restaurant is rather busy today; probably at least eighty-percent capacity with the lower level and most of the balcony areas full of guests. This is both good and bad for the Trundeau's. The good part is that Cadena will not likely stand out in the midst of the crowd; only a few tables tend to spare him more than a lingering glance. The bad part is that it is a bit noisy.
Cadena makes a show of sniffing at the menu and the table in general, and then just rests one paw on the menu, a claw tip tapping the "egg roll sampler."
"Egg Rolls, got it," Tracy says to Cadena. "Do you prefer crunchy food in general, or was that just a random choice?"
The dog looks around, then whispers, "No utensils, no bones, no mess."
Mark puts in for the 'sizzling beef platter'. Holly decides on chicken with asparagus, and in the universal belief that parents everywhere share that their children need to eat more vegetables, a spinach stirfry with "flower wontons".
Tracy makes a mental note: Buy some Tater Tots at the market, and some bagel-dogs too.
Cadena spares a slightly incredulous look at a cat snapping away at slivers of flesh from an entire fish, just three tables down. He and then returns his paw to the mat, mission accomplished.
The waiter comes by to take their order, a handsome Asian fellow who could be right out of one of those martial arts holodramas - was it maybe 'A Fist Full of Plasma'? "Would sirs and madame care for anything to drink?" he asks unctuously.
Cadena doesn't place any drink order, but scrutinizes the waiter's face ... then remembers himself and does a couple of obligatory "dog sniffs at the air."
Smiling to the waiter, Tracy asks for, "Diet lemon-lime please, and.." she glances to Cadena, wondering what he'd like to drink.. and if it can be served in a bowl. "A bowl of beef broth," she concludes.
The dog's tail wags.
"A bowl for the good dog, then," the waiter says, making a note on his pad. "And a diet lemon lime for the pretty lady." Holly takes a mineral water and Mark asks for a bottle of red wine, drawing a 'Dear!' and Significant Look from his wife... Followed by an amendment to 'I'll have water too.'
The waiter bows. "Your drinks will be along very soon, sirs and madames!"
"So, you don't talk in public if you don't have to?" Tracy asks Cadena.
The dog does another quick check around, then whispers, "I defer to your discretion, but by default try to keep a low profile."
In short order, the water brings out the egg rolls sampler along with their drinks. Golden fried cylinders of batter are arranged on a huge tray etched with red and gold dragons, with dipping bowls of mustard and soy sauce serving as the sun and moon in the picture. He bows and leaves the diners to eat.
"Want any of them dipped?" Tracy asks the dog, not wanting him to try it himself.
Cadena leans forward and breathes in deeply, tail wagging at Tracy's suggestion.
The girl obligingly dips an eggroll into the soy sauce first, then offers it to Cadena with a smile.
Holly makes small talk with Mark, not wanting to interrupt her daughter's conversation with Cadena. "So Ms. Arcadia decided to drop her suit?" "Yes, we had a little chat about it, she understands there was nothing we could have done." "The poor woman." She reaches out and squeezes Tracy's hand briefly.
The dog almost looks tearfully happy, opening his mouth tentatively, gingerly taking the egg roll without touching any fingers, and then blissfully chewing away at the crispy, flaky golden coating and its montage of ingredients tucked away inside.
The dog, however, stops in mid-chew, then resumes a bit more slowly and solemnly.
While dipping a fresh roll in the mustard, Tracy asks, "What's this about Mrs. Arcadia?"
Mark smiles. "Just work, nothing to worry about." He pats Tracy's hand as well. "Avatars is always a target for suits of all kinds, you know that."
"Why would she be suing Avatars though?" Tracy asks, holding the roll out for Cadena. "Is it about the.. you know.. a few years ago?"
Cadena looks up from lapping at the beef broth bowl, and carefully takes the next egg roll.
Holly nibbles delicately on an eggroll, finishes chewing and swallows before answering. "No, but she recently lost her daughter, and her daughter played Avatars a lot," she says. "She may have felt we were to blame in some way for her daughter's illness."
Mark shakes his head. "It's very sad, but it wasn't anything to do with us. The doctors identified the retrovirus. Something to do with the troubles of the '50s. There were a lot of angry people running around then."
"Oh," Tracy says, flashing back to all of the innoculations she'd been through over her life.. and to a certain extent still gets every year.
The waiter comes by to remove the crumbs-strewn tray and bring the next set of courses. A big bowl of steaming rice, steamed black cod with a sweet misoyaki sauce, a big platter of hot steel with beef sizzling on it, dusted with sesame seeds, and sliced chicken breasts with asparagus spears. The centerpiece is the spinach stirfry, which has small fried wontons shaped like flowers nestled into the leaves.
The big white dog admires the artistry before it gets inevitably broken up by servings, gives the room another scan, and then returns to finishing off his broth.
While Tracy fills her plate, and one for Cadena (if she has to eat her veggies, her dog does too) she asks, "Is everything going okay with the Game still? No more weird.. glitches?" Now that she's seen what happened to her mother and the others when they were trapped inside the virtual world (courtesy of RIU and Jason) she's been very unsettled about it. Not as much as having her home destroyed, but some of it still shows up in her regular nightmares.
The dog eats his greens without complaint.
Holly mmms on the spinach and asparagus, perhaps trying to encourage her meat-loving husband to eat some veggies as well. She breaks off to answer, "No, nothing unusual, sweetie. Everything's running fine, the new White seems to have settled in fine. Why, have you heard something?"
"No, I just haven't been.. following things.. since I started my college work," Tracy admits, not really wanting to tell her mother that she hasn't played Avatars in over a year now - and has even defected to the other team.
Holly nods sympathetically. "Those professors at NYU, they're keeping you busy? Do they seem to know what they're doing, or would you rather that work intership program?"
The big white dog seems to have finished with his bowl for a bit, and stands up, as if stretching his legs.
"I want to get some practice in first before trying for an internship," Tracy says with a smile. "The scape I'm working on now is set in an O'Neil type colony, and you have to compensate for the Coriolis effect and use it to get around by jumping.."
The white dog settles back down again, sniffing at the air some more.
Mark looks interested. "So, a jumping type game? Is it, like, team versus team, you're trying to get through the bad guys and grab the objective and get out?"
"Oh, nothing that developed yet," Tracy admits. "Right now it's just an obstacle course, and.. there are issues jumping through the axis."
Mark grins. "Well, you know, Marketing's always on the lookout for fresh new projects. We don't just run Avatars, we also host a bunch of boutique games. So if you ever want to pitch it..." Holly kisses his cheek. "Dear, she's our daughter, not an employee."
Dessert: fried bananas with green tea ice cream! A classic, but a tasty one.
Tracy just grins. The project is really just for Parkour enthusiasts, but it does count for a grade. She takes a small portion of dessert, since she does try to watch her diet a bit, in terms of calories if not quality.
One fortune cookie is stuck in each individual scoop of ice cream.
Helpfully, Tracy cracks Cadena's cookie open for him, then reads her own fortune.
The slip of paper on Tracy's fortune reads, "You will travel to faraway places." Cadena's fortune reads, "Be alert! The world needs more lerts."
The dog blinks several times at his fortune, then consoles himself by indulging in the very crunchy and crackly cookie.
Spoon in mouth, Tracy doesn't give her's much thought - it's just a fortune cookie, after all. She reflexively turns it over to see what her 'lucky numbers' are though. Sometimes she uses them as encryption keys.
Holly shares her fortune and Mark's, which are respectively, "You will meet a tall, dark, and handsome stranger," and "A goodbye is just a way to say hello again later." Holly reaches down to wipe off the crumbs and... "Where did my napkin go?" She peers under the table suspiciously.
"Don't blame me, I can prove this is mine," Tracy says, showing that the smears on the napkin match her lipstick color.
The lucky numbers seem to be 3, 14, 15, 9, 2, and 65.
The white dog somewhat conspicuously turns to glance over toward the stairs.
Holly shakes her head but borrows Mark's napkin. There's no need to pay the bill, this is going on her expense account, so she stands and offers her husband a hand to get up.
Cadena, seeing everyone get up, gets up as well. He noses his fortune over to Tracy.
"Cadena and I can take the elevators if you've got other stuff to do," Tracy offers, as she unfolds her legs and gets up, taking Cadena's fortune with her.
The white dog trots over in the general direction of the stairs.
"Oh, that's right," Mark says, getting a legal pad - a slim 5x8 bit of plastic that lights up with the standard beta-testing contract. "Sign here and he's all yours."
The white dog's ears flatten, and he makes a whine and looks over to the Trudeaus ... then trots balcony-ward.
"Fine," Tracy notes, and signs with the stylus and pushes her thumb to the appropriate square as well. "Now.. where'd he go?" she asks, looking around for the dog.
Mark puts the pad away. "Okay, have fun with your new friend!" he says smiling, then gives Tracy a hug. Holly does as well, squeezing her daughter.
"See you guys later!" Tracy says to her parents, and then heads for the stairs to try and catch her new pet... and wondering if he comes with an instruction manual or anything. She'll have to ask him later!
The white dog is in the process of going up the stairs, and appears to be snapping at something small, white, and flat.
The napkin appears to have been arrested in mid-air and now drops down to hang limply from the dog's mouth.
Tracy pauses after witnessing this. It takes a moment for her to do the mental math. "RIU, why did you steal my mother's napkin?" she whispers to the air.
Up in the balcony area there are relatively few diners, and the lighting is subdued for the sake of privacy and quiet conversation.
Cadena turns to Tracy, and trots back down to her with the napkin.
It's a bit of a double-take moment, seeing Jason clean-shaven and actually dressed almost business-like in a black button-down shirt, red tie, and trenchcoat, but there he is on the upper balcony. He seems to laugh to himself and shake his head as he watches a certain dog 'win' a napkin. He pulls out some sunglasses, puts them on, then grabs a cardboard box from the table and heads towards the stairs. As he walks, he waves to the air, then pats his shoulder.
They can hear Holly and Mark making pleasant conversation with Mr. Yan as Tracy's parents prepare to leave.
Clawtip indentations appear on Jason's jacket, along with a cheerful "Beep!"
"Good dog," Tracy says, patting Cadena and taking the napkin. She also checks to see if there's anyone else around before saying, "Wow, you clean up pretty good, Jason. Here on business or just stalking me on principle?"
The white dog averts his attention from Jason/Mr. Trenchcoat and scans the room, keeping close to Tracy.
"Business, of course," Jason comments to Tracy as he heads down the stairs. "And your mother is as unobservant as always." The latter comment comes with a bemused grin.
"This should be educational," Tracy tells Cadena, and follows Jason.
Holly and Mark exit the restaurant, heading toward their aircar.
The dog makes way, and follows Tracy.
Jason heads towards the exit as well and once outside, comments loud enough for Holly to hopefully hear, "It could have been a purse or a wallet other than a napkin. You need to pay better attention to your surroundings, Holly. There are lots of questionable people around..."
At that remark, Tracy steps away from a Jason a bit, then realizes she's still clutching the incriminating napkin.
The white dog sniffs at the napkin.
Holly pauses, hearing a familiar voice. "What? Oh my goodness. Jason!" She's as short as ever but a little older than Jason remembers, a little more worn by worries. "What are you doing here?" Her eyes are halfway between a smile and suspicion.
Mark raises an eyebrow. "The security consultant?" Holly nods to him.
The dog looks back and forth between Mrs. Trudeau and Mr. ... Security Consultant.
Tracy kneels down, and whispers to Cadena, "This is Jason Edwards and his invisible pet dragon RIU. They're friends, but.. not harmless. They like to embarrass me, but that's not an attack."
"Business lunch," Jason remarks and lifts his leftover box as 'proof', "Not as productive as I would like, but that's how it goes some days." He waves between Tracy, the dog, then Mark, asking, "Family lunch? How domestic." He grins, which causes his sunglasses to lift a bit.
The big white dog pants and wags his tail.
Holly reasons, "It's been a while since we've seen each other... A mother likes to know her daughter's doing all right."
Mark adds sotto voce, "It's hard for her to let go."
Tracy thinks, "The place is clean, no underwear hanging in the shower or old food sitting out. If Jason wants to come over though, will he be disappointed that it's clean?"
"I sometimes handle surveillance contracts. I could give you a good price on a system to monitor her twenty-four-seven," Jason offers. "At cost. A deal only for old friends."
"I only just got her to stop calling me every day," Tracy grumbles at Jason. "It's like a ten minute walk between my place and theirs."
The dog circles about, taking interest in the surroundings, the drifting scents coming out of the restaurant, and so forth.
Holly laughs. "I think a certain someone might object," she says, looking over at her daughter fondly. "How have you been? I haven't heard from you in the longest time."
Jason taps his shoulder then gestures towards Holly, should RIU want to go say hello as well. The question is first answered by a shrug. "Busy. Between regular work and projects, I don't have much time to make purely social calls, you know? I haven't really kept up with anyone since ... well, the mess," he adds.
"Hey RIU, this is Cadena," Tracy says, figuring the two might get along - or not. RIU can fly and shoot people.. but Cadena can talk and eat ice-cream. There might be some mutual jealousy.
Invisible dragon gives Holly invisible neck-hug! Holly squeaks in surprise, then pats the unseen dragon. "Even Randall calls me every now and then! He's doing well in CERT I gather, they finally promoted him out of probationary status last year. Do you need his number?" She reaches for her handbag - true to form, it's a big one that could carry small elephants.
Immediately, Tracy turns to watch Jason's facial expression when her mom reaches into the bag.
RIU beeps! politely at Cadena from his perch. He lifts into the air and swoops once around the white dog, before settling back onto Jason's jacket.
"No, I have it. No one can hide from me if I want to find them," Jason notes as he reflexively takes a step back when Holly goes for the bag, "And I suppose I shouldn't keep you. I'm sure you have important business to attend to." His left eyebrow twitches, then he can't help himself and addresses Mark, "I have to ask this ... has she ever attacked you with a squid?"
The white dog looks friendly, and wags, and although he sniffs at the air a bit, gives no indication of having the ability to see invisible things that aren't carrying visible things (such as napkins).
Nothing more dangerous than her PDA appears from the purse. Holly pauses, then puts it back in. "That's true, it's why I hired you in the first place," she admits with a smile, then leans toward Jason to confide. "Things have been ... a little hectic lately. We've been changing the passwords on everything on a rotating basis, tightening up security. With Vilius gone independent, I'm being just a bit paranoid."
Mark looks startled. "Not unless you count sushi," he says. "Can't stand the stuff."
"Wait.. you mean you weren't paranoid before?" Tracy asks her mother in mock horror.
Holly shakes her head. "You'll know I'm being paranoid when I lock a chastity belt on you," she says with a grin.
"You should be. Vilius is not exactly engaged in completely legitimate operations," Jason says, "His name has come up quite often in rumors of covert operations, to even assassination attempts. He's also in the market for military gear, from what I've seen. Irongrip is a company that worries me."
RIU de-cloaks with a shimmer of color and scales, then slinks back into Jason's trenchcoat.
"Then why did you make me get those contra-" Tracy starts to retort, then realizes she isn't about to say 'contraceptive shots' in front of her father.
The white dog snaps his jaw shut suddenly, at the sight of what was invisible just a moment ago, then looks disappointed that it is so quickly out of sight.
Holly frowns. "We've been keeping tabs on Irongrip Security, but we can't do anything unless we can prove that he's using what he knows against us. Technically his business isn't violating his no-compete clause."
As an aside to her daughter, Holly murmurs, "You can never be too careful, dear."
Mark looks puzzled at the exchange between his wife and his daughter. "Is it just me or do women have a secret code?" he whispers to Jason.
"Unless you have overkill information, you can't move against anyone. Either you go for a complete kill, or bide your time. Nothing is more dangerous than a wounded adversary," Jason quips. "One of his flunkies tried to access my systems, if you can believe it."
Tracy scratches Cadena behind the ears as a distraction.
"I just accept women are insane and operate from that position," Jason replies quietly to Mark.
Holly nods to Jason. "I wouldn't be surprised, these days you can't just stop at guns and soldiers and call a site secure. I'm sure they have a cyberwarfare department. If you get any word they're targeting Avatars for something, give me a priority call, all right?" She uses her PDA to send Jason a contact that will get through the typical security screen and directly to her, day or night.
Mark nods sagaciously.
"Isn't Avatar's security handled by an AD though?" Tracy asks, showing she's at least paying some attention to the conversation. "Hel, right? Wouldn't they need their own AI to try and get past her?"
"I will. So far they just seem to be a 'for hire, few questions asked' group. I wouldn't put it past them to try for larger companies in time. Or their families. Be careful, Holly. You have a lot to lose. One advantage of being a bit of a recluse is no one gets caught in the cross-fire," Jason says. To Tracy he notes, "Remember that an AI is built and can be unbuilt. We took down White. A good hacker could take down Hel."
Holly says to Tracy, "HEL can't be everywhere, and HEL's limited in certain ways ... ways that Vilius is aware of. That's why we have humans in the loop too, to think of the things that HEL can't."
"So.. uh, why not infiltrate Irongrip and find out what they're up to?" Tracy asks.
Mark recites from memory, "We are not authorized to discuss what paralegal measures Avatars LLC is taking against companies which may or may not have our best interests at heart."
Holly says this along with Mark, then laughs. "Some family we have!"
"Know what a lobotomy is?" Jason asks Tracy rather bluntly. "Because that's what can happen to you if you fail at breaking into a red-class system."
"I mean, like.. planting a mole in with them," Tracy clarifies. "Not everything incriminating would be on a computer."
Holly instantly tells Tracy, "You are not to try to infiltrate Irongrip Security."
The big white dog reluctantly withdraws from the ear-scratching to more vigorously resume his scanning of the surroundings.
"I don't care how cute you look or how nice Mr. Irons seemed when you met him at the corporate picnic three years ago, he is a dangerous man and not to be taken lightly," she adds.
"That just earns you a lead lobotomy," Jason quips. "It isn't like the movies, underdogs usually lose."
"You aren't an underdog," Tracy tells Cadena. "You are an uber-dog."
Mark coughs. "Honey, don't make Holly regret letting you have an apartment of your own," he says discreetly to Tracy. "Not unless you want her to take Jason up on his offer of a surveillance system."
The white dog's tail continues to wag.
"Holly," Jason asks, possibly trying to change the subject, "Have you kept in contact with Akiko and Inari since ... everything?"
"I wasn't volunteering to be a spy," Tracy notes in a droll tone. "I'm too busy as it is. And I doubt mom would want Jason watching me all the time."
Holly nods. "Akiko's working up at the Magnolia Tower, with Arcadia Investments. She's really matured, since she's gotten out on her own! I think it's done a lot of good for her. Inari..." She shakes her head. "HEL's been keeping an eye on news about her for me, but she hasn't called me. I'm worried about her, she was just 'weird' a few years ago, but she seems to be getting more and more dangerous. Taking risks, doing crazy stunts... Did you know they started hiring people with stunt acting in their background to play her roadies and friends?"
Mark grins. "Heaven knows, I don't want Jason watching you all the time. Hey, how do you know him, anyway?"
"Uh.." Tracy starts to say, looking cornered. "I thought he and mom were having an affair when you were divorced so I did some research!" she blurts.
Jason rubs his forehead. "That wasn't what I wanted to hear. You should have just lied to me," he comments, suddenly sounding tired. "If I had to guess ... that behavior implies she's unhappy. You stay busy. Immersed. It helps keep you from thinking about what is bothering you. I don't have her contact information and I don't think she would particularly want to hear from me anyway."
"I... You..." Mark turns red. Embarrassment or anger? "They weren't, right?"
The white dog ... looks between the Trudeaus and Mr. Security Consultant, and then Tracy.
"Anyway, I should let you two go. Forward me Akiko's information when you get a chance? I should at least say hello one of these days," Jason adds.
Holly sighs. "I'm sorry, Jason. I had a feeling that you and she had something, but I was never sure why you two didn't follow up. If you want to get a message to her, I could have it expedited. HEL has its ways."
"They weren't, dad," Tracy assures her father.
"I'll keep that in mind," Jason says, "It was good seeing you. You're as short as ever." Wow, was that last comment half-hearted.
Mark whews, regaining some of his natural coloration. "That business with Sasha... It should never have happened," he says unhappily. "Some people are just very good at..."
"Let's not talk about her okay," Tracy whispers to her father.
Mark shakes his head to clear it. "From what I hear from Holly, Jason's a straight-up guy. But he's a little old for you, you get my drift?" He hugs Tracy again, sensing Holly and Jason wrapping up their conversation. "You take care of yourself, honey."
Holly grimaces. "Someday I'll buy that leg extension surgery and then I'm going to come over and LOOM over you," she threatens Jason. "Stay in touch!"
"I could use a good loom. My towels are looking ratty," Jason quips, waves to Holly, then starts to walk away.
Tracy stares open-mouthed at her father. "Daaad," she hisses. "Mom's the one who's supposed to make comments like that."
Mark makes an imaginary shotgun-ratcheting motion. "Shotgun wedding," he promises, then walks off after Holly to their car.
The white dog looks back and forth, and trots over after the elder Trudeaus to accompany them to their car.
Holly pets Cadena. "You look after my girl now," she whispers to him.
"Let's walk off some of this food, Cadena," Tracy says, smiling to the dog.
Cadena wags his tail and looks up appreciatively to Mrs. Trudeau.
Tracy heads after Jason, catching up and asking, "Are you going to call her? Akiko, I mean. Or just try to find out if she's got a boyfriend now or anything?"
In the moment Tracy seems to be occupying Jason, Cadena looks to Mrs. Trudeau and whispers back, "Thank you ... for a second chance. I value your trust more than I can say." He then pulls back one forepaw and ducks his head in a bow. "I can only hope to justify it through action."
Jason stops mid-step. "That's an odd question," he comments and gives Tracy a sidelong look. "I'll probably call her, yes. Why do you ask?"
Holly smiles, though her eyes seem a little teary. The Trudeaus clamber into the aircar and prepare to depart.
"Because.. I'm curious!" Tracy claims. "In those recordings you showed me, you really seemed to have some affection for her and Inari.."
Cadena straightens up, tail wagging as he watches the Trudeaus, and then he bounds back toward Tracy.
"Adverse situations tend to form friendships," Jason claims. "And speaking of uncomfortable topics, your little toy needs to be returned to its owners before they com looking for you."
"How do you know they're even missing it?" Tracy says. "But I can come and pick it up if you don't want it left at your place. Oh, that kind of reminds me: is there a way to see through partially silvered windows? My unit faces into one of the big light wells, and all the windows are silvered to reflect the light around and for privacy, but I want to be sure they're private."
"Because the father of the last girl contacted me about it," Jason notes, "He has about a month before it is missed. Once his superiors discover it is missing, well, it might mean his life and the life of his idiot daughter." The question then gets a laugh as he says, "As for the windows, that reflects visible spectrum. You can still pick up heat signatures and electromagnetic ones if it doesn't also act as a faraday cage. You can use either to reconstruct what is on the other side."
"Great, so even if I opaque them completely.. wait, what?" Tracy asks. "You found the guy who snatched the suit originally? Or did he find you to find it for him?"
"He was able to trace my inquiries about it," Jason notes, "Which is rather impressive. All he knows is that it came up in one of my investigations. Which is true, mostly. I told him if I located it I would let him know."
"Well, can you charge him enough for recovering it that there's some leftover to actually buy one of the suits?" Tracy asks.
"Oh, been meaning to ask: What's with the dog?" Jason asks. "And no, not really. The only way to get one is through the black market, more or less, since it is military. That's what my lunch was about, I was trying to locate a replacement."
"You were?" Tracy asks, perking up. "For me? Oh.. this is Cadena, an Avatar's Real Life Companion superdog! For my protection, apparently."
The dog looks up at mention of his name, from watching the Trudeaus' hover-car fly off.
A rattly blue-painted G-Motors Commuter hoverbike pulls up at the skyway, trailing smoke. This one looks three years old. The driver, coughing, gets off of the bike and fans his face.
"A super dog? He doesn't look very super," Jason notes as he squats down to get a better look. "Does he fly or shoot lasers out of his eyes? And as for the suit, it will cost minimum of at least a grand to get a replacement, and that's dealing with ... less that pleasant or trustworthy people."
Cadena spins about, on alert, in case there's an emergency afoot.
"He can sort-of-handle stuff with his paws, and.. talk," Tracy confides. "Do I need to come up with that money then?" she asks, "Assuming you can find a replacement, I mean.."
The driver looks to be a freshfaced cropped blond haired teenager, maybe a bit younger than Tracy. "Frotzin' piece of junk," he curses, kicking the hoverbike. Now that the engine is off, the rattling noise and the smoke die away.
The dog, seemingly satisfied, spins back around, and bobs one ear, looking up a bit sideways at Tracy. He patiently submits to Mr. Trenchcoat's examination.
"I'm more likely going to discover a bullet in my head," Jason remarks and gets back up. "You really don't want to be involved in this, Tracy. We're talking Dreg-Gangs. You're better off returning the suit and just taking the reward. I'm sure your super-dog would agree with me, too."
Tracy throws her head back and stares upwards angrily for a moment. Then she looks at Jason again and asks, "How much is the reward? And is there a bonus for repairing the infection?"
The hapless motorist crawls under his bike to access the engine compartment. He slips a multi-tool out of his pocket and opens it up, resulting in a rain of blackened bolts and plastic fragments of what was once, if Jason doesn't miss his guess, one of the fuel injectors.
"Five hundred. That's not enough for even a consumer-grade suit. It'll cover half of what the black market can get the military grade one for, when it 'falls' off a truck if you catch my drift," Jason says. He also can't help but roll his eyes and shout over to the man, "You blew one of your fuel injectors. That isn't moving again without a replacement."
"Anyway, you have almost a month to decide. I knew you would be mad about it, which is why I've been looking into replacements," Jason adds to Tracy.
Tracy watches the bike and pilot. "I was thinking of getting a flyer, more so now that I've got a dog. If you're willing to keep looking for me, I'll wait a bit longer. Maybe the guy will increase the reward if he gets nervous? But I suppose I'll have to give up the suit in hand no matter what now."
"Aw, fandangle!" the driver exclaims. He pulls himself out from under the thing and fishes out his PDA to call for a tow. "Stupid G-Motors junkheap. 'It'll save money', my foot."
Cadena quietly whines sympathetically.
"All depends on if you care that someone might die over it," Jason notes. He rolls his eyes again and starts towards the bike now. "You don't need a tow," he says. "Does the horn work?"
"Well, of course I'm not going to let someone get killed because I want a neat suit," Tracy says, sniffing. "Unless of course it can be used as part of a sting operation to catch Irongrip breaking the law. Maybe I should talk to Randall about it?"
"You don't want to get involved with Irongrip," Jason shouts over his shoulder.
An advertising zeppelin flies by, showing a video of black trenchcoated characters fighting each other over an eerily glowing ceremony in the shadow of a skyscraper. A werewolf lunges for a vampire, then some cowboy-styled character lets loose with twin six-shooters at a Victorianesque steam-powered mecha, and finally an angel, brightly glowing and winged, locks swords with a demon. The Dantech logo flashes in the corner, then swooshes across to fade the scene to the message, "The Gloaming. Go to faraway worlds. Meet strange people. Fight them."
The driver gets up. "I think so," he says. "M'name's Mike. Running late for an appointment, but..." He gestures at the bike.
Cadena is momentarily entranced by the advertising zeppelin, then sidles up to Tracy and whispers, "Have you a moment, mistress? I have reason to believe in his veracity regarding the sort of company he has been doing business with."
"Well, you won't after this, but it can act as a makeshift injector," Jason explains as he picks up the multi-tool the guy was using. "It's just a high-speed air-injector, after all. With a little fiddling, it can inject fuel too," he adds as he gestures towards the bike. "Do you mind?"
"Huh, really?" Mike stares slackjawed. "Uh-- what'll it cost?"
Letting out a sigh, Tracy realizes the world is conspiring to keep her from any kind of danger or excitement. She follows along to the downed bike, and watches the advertisement as well - another reminder that her costume just won't be what she wants. Maybe she could get a hacked consumer version though for cheap, fix it and make the extra modifications. She finally takes a look at the complaining pilot, then whispers to Cadena, "Yeah, I know. I went through a lot of embarrassment for that suit, too."
"Depends," Jason says as he crouches down so that he can find and disconnect the horn, "What do you do? What is your appointment about?"
"His dining companion," Cadena whispers, glancing at the spectacle of remarkable parts substitution, "was attempting to conceal a Spazztic sidearm in the back of his jacket in a public place. That isn't illegal, per se, assuming one has the proper license, but it shows a distinct lack of value of safety at the very least - and possibly a lack of restraint. It is company unwise to keep - or to cross."
Mike looks like your average high school student. Decent pseudo-leather jacket and pants, recommended for the biker. No helmet, which is not recommended. "I, uh, I've got a job interview. Up in the Pagoda Gardens." One of the indoors parks and tea houses. Hopefully he cleans up better than he looks right now.
"You were able to smell all of that," Tracy whispers to Cadena, trying to look like she's not shocked by the revelation.
"There were more senses involved than that, mistress," Cadena clarifies quietly.
"Still, that's pretty amazing.. and do you have to call me mistress?" Tracy whispers back. "Just 'Tracy' is fine. What do your senses tell you about Mr. Mike here. Anything suspicious?"
"I will use whatever address, casual or formal, you prefer, Tracy," Cadena says, and then he turns his attention back to the bike. "I regret that I sense nothing more interesting than what you have already likely ascertained for yourself."
The white dog sneezes as he gets a nose-full of fumes, and then repositions himself so as not to be downwind of the plume.
"Hi, I'm Tracy," Tracy introduces herself to the pilot while Jason fixes his ride. "What sort of job are you applying for at the Gardens?" she asks, smiling.
"You're a bad liar, Mike," Jason notes quietly as he fiddles with the horn cone, collapsing it so that it roughly equals that of a fuel injector then begins to fit it to the engine and its electrical. "You aren't dressed to interview up there. You're also far more nervous than a job interview would indicate. So what are you really up here for? Drugs? Weapons?"
The zeppelin drifts past, repeating the advertisement. This time it's set in a different world, a draw-down at an Indian reservation with the barmaid shimmering into a kitsune in a kimono and stepping into the background as the cowboy draws down on a werewolf. Thundering up behind them is a man on a golden lion, wearing a star over his chest.
Mike stammers. "Um-- are you a police officer? You have to tell me if you are!"
"Nope," Jason remarks as he works on the wiring harness. "Just pointing out you're rather bad at whatever it is you're intending to do here. I recommend that you head home and reconsider your choice."
"You don't smell any drugs on him, right?" Tracy asks Cadena, just in case the dog missed them before.
The student shakes his head. "If I could afford to turn down a job, would I be driving a G-Motors junkheap? Saw an advertisement for hackers on the freenets, deciphered the address, came up..." He gestures skyward. "In nosebleed territory, yaknow?"
Cadena tries to ever-so-subtly get a sniff, now that he's recovered from a nose-full of fumes, then looks to Tracy and quietly shakes his head in the negative.
Jason looks up at this. "Hacker, eh? Can you give me the information you recovered?" he asks, paused in his work. "Or ... give me a way to contact you once you're done with the 'interview'. I ... dabble in hacking myself. So, I always like to know what is up in the net. I don't need the job, I just like to be aware. I would consider that payment enough for fixing your bike." A few more twists of wire and then he closes up the compartment.
"No drugs," Cadena whispers, drawing closer to Tracy while Jason keeps the pilot engaged. "I'm guessing he's from Old City or the Factory area by the smell of his clothes."
Mike nods still nervous. "Sure. I'll give you a heads up." He brings up his PDA and offers a file transfer.
"Wow.. do Jason's clothes smell the same then to you?" Tracy whispers to the dog.
"RIU, receive broadcast," Jason thinks as he gets to his feet. "Word of warning. The people up here aren't averse to putting a bullet through your head since you're from down below. Be careful. If this really is a hack job, well ... you might be considered a liability later," he tells Mike.
Cadena gives Tracy a canine shrug, and whispers, "He smells of the sorts of chemicals I would associate with a workshop dealing in electronics and light machines. There's nothing so distinctive as to hint as to where the workshop is, however. I'm not that good."
The file gets transferred and safely stored in a holding area for unvetted data. Mike salutes. "Good meetin' a fellow on the net," he says gratefully.
"You're good to go," Jason says as he hands back the multi-tool. He actually salutes the kid, then steps away from the bike.
"Good.. fortunes," Tracy offers, stepping back as well.
The white dog keeps pace with Tracy, and is especially mindful for any sudden bursts of fumes.
Mike hops back onto his G-Motors Commuter. Smoke belches from its tailpipes, and then it's off again.
The Gloaming advertisement zeppelin drifts by, on its way to share its message with more of the suburban dwellers.
"He'll be dead in a week," Jason tells Tracy and her dog. "Can't say I didn't warn him."
"So why not report him to CERT, let them scare him off or something?" Tracy asks.
The white dog gives the parting hacker-wannabe a forlorn look, as the hover-bike disappears into the traffic.
"I'm not the police," Jason tells Tracy as he attempts to hail a cab. Still, as gruff as that sounds, Jason asks RIU to forward a copy of the file to his home system and another over to Randall in case he wants to follow up on it.
"So.. need help with anything?" Tracy digs, before Jason can vanish. "Anything I can help with, I mean?"
The green taxi just down the way pops open the passenger doors. "Hey! You guys need a ride?" calls the driver, leaning out his window.
"Maybe. You can let me scan your dog," Jason remarks, half-in the taxi, "And you have to get to work on your program, don't you? I'm sure I can find something."
"Great!" Tracy says, and piles into the cab as well, then calls to Cadena.
The taxi ride is uneventful, asides from Cadena sticking his head out the window and catching a face full of wind. This fortunately does not result in airborne doggies.
"You guys are crazy, but I like you guys," the taxi driver says as he drops them off. "You want me, just call my company, ask for Manuel, I give you half off."
"We'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the ride," Jason says as he pays the driver.\
"Thanks, Manuel!" Tracy says, and waves as well.
The white dog makes a quick circuit, sniffing, looking and listening, taking gauge of his new, and interesting surroundings.
Manuel thumbs-up, then lifts off. "Hi-ho, Silverrr!" Once it's at a safe height, the taxi fires up its engines and zooms away.
"You have caused me a lot of problems," Jason tells Tracy and he heads towards the door. "This suit of yours ... I'll have to deal with that Desoto fellow regardless. I ought to make you help test my bullet-proof vest." At the door he has to go through six different security codes, a retinal scan, a fingerprint scan, a voice-print verification, and even a footprint verification, before the front doors unlock.
"You want me to shoot at you?" Tracy asks, innocently.
"No, I was going to shoot you," Jason remarks as he walks into his building and heads straight for the lab.
Cadena keeps just a little closer to Tracy.
"Keep up, Caddy," Tracy tells her companion, and hurries after Jason. "If you take me out for dinner, I'll let you shoot me. Why waste the one time you're actually cleaned up?"
A standard household robot with its head molded to resemble a kitsune, dressed in a kimono, looks up as Jason enters. Not that it actually needed to, but it's part of its 'social behavior' programming. Today its kimono is patterned in sky blue with cartoonily bulbous gray jet planes streaking across the sleeves.
Jason leads the menagerie in. He pulls his coat off and drapes it on Kimon's head as he passes the kitsune-shaped computer system. Nevermind that RIU was half-stuffed in one of the pockets. "For a dog you claimed talks ... he's rather quiet," he notes.
Cadena trots over to the coat and sniffs at the pockets.
Kimon, well trained in how to handle this, removes the trenchcoat from its head, then pauses. The squirming pocket does not match its programming. RIU solves the problem by jumping out... Right onto Cadena's head. BEEP!
"He talks when he has something to say," Tracy claims. She offers her wind-breaker to the robot as well.
The white dog's ears flatten, and eyes squint, but he tolerates the head-rider.
Kimon obediently puts both Jason's coat and Tracy's away.
"You're also rather lucky that I was able to shut that suit down when I did. Its last wearer has nude photos on a web site because of it. A site that even gives me a problem in breaking into," Jason notes as he unlocks the lab doors (my this building has a lot of locks).
"There you are, RIU!" Tracy says. "You play nice with Cadena. He doesn't have any bad habits yet."
RIU winds around Cadena's head until it's perched comfortably on his back. It shakes its head, then its body, and finally its tail, then sits up properly. Beep!
Cadena trots at a careful pace over to catch up with Tracy, so as not to dislodge his rider.
"Well, that's why I don't use the showers at the gym," Tracy tells Jason. "I'm a little bummed that I may never get to really try it out before having to give it up now though." Once they reach the kitchen, the girl checks to see if there's a mess or not.
"As I said, there's a month before it absolutely has to go back. A replacement is possible, just not safe to get," Jason notes, "Which unfortunately means I have to accelerate some of my plans." The kitchen is in its usual semi-messy state.
"Plans?" Tracy asks, as she detours to start cleaning up some of the mess. "You already had plans for the suit?"
RIU sniffs at Cadena's collar, then scampers around to admire the big shiny blue centerpiece of it.
"Not for yours," Jason remarks. "Now, Cadena, is it? What exactly are you?" he asks the odd canid.
The white dog breaks from patiently withstanding RIU's investigation, to look askance to Tracy, cocking one ear.
Tracy wonders about what other suit Jason means, but focuses on cleaning dishes for the moment. Her own kitchenette is too small for a dishwasher, so she's used to this.
The dog pauses, looks askance ... looks askance again ... then perhaps finally realizes that looking askance is perhaps just a bit too subtle, as he trots over and noses Tracy's leg.
RIU clings to Cadena upside down as he moves!
"You can talk to him, Cadena; it's okay," Tracy says. "Besides, he's scanned me and it didn't hurt or anything."
"Ah, the kind that doesn't talk to strange men," Jason concludes when a reply isn't immediately forthcoming. "Well, I'm used to that. Anyway, you're welcome to use my desk in the lab to work on your costume model, Tracy. I'll be occupied in the center. I've only got a few days now before I might need this working completely."
"My apologies, sir," Cadena says at last. "I am not yet accustomed to Tracy's preferences, so I wanted to be absolutely certain before I displayed any behavior that might be considered out of the norm."
RIU scuttles around to the topside of Cadena, peering down at him suspiciously as if to say he talked!
"It's a good thing I brought my chipware with me," Tracy says, patting her purse. She watches RIU and grins, setting the last plate in the drying rack. "Let's go see the mad scientist lair!"
Jason stops midway through the lab doors. "Oh, well ... first rule is ... we're all abnormal here," he notes. "And before you wonder ... no, there is nothing between Tracy and myself outside of she just needed someone to talk to about the Fracture incident. Her parents' won't discuss it with her."
"I sympathize," Cadena says. "There is a great deal that I do not know, that I suspect might be relevant to my new duties."
"All super-heroes need teen-aged sidekicks, after all," Tracy comments.
"There's no such thing as super-heroes," Jason remarks as the conversation moves into the main lab.
RIU glides up to perch on Kimon's head as the robot follows them, the better to keep an eye on what's going on.
Cadena inspects the surroundings a little more freely, now that he hasn't a rider to be mindful of.
Tracy heads for the desk, slipping a metal case from her purse. She sits down and pops open the case, taking a blue chipware stick from it and slotting it into the desk interface. The VR sculpting software is hardcoded into the built-in processor to prevent piracy - or at least prevent piracy for those who don't have systems powerful enough to perform the necessary hardware emulation.
"The good news is the Fracture has been quiet. I do tend to keep watch on ground zero as much as I can," Jason says as he heads over to one of the myriad of tables, moves some junk around, then hits a buried button. "But, that doesn't mean there aren't mundane issues that are just as unpleasant. Irongrip Security is one of those problems ... the dreg gangs are another. At least in terms of those that involve Tracy. I've got my own issues to sort out." There's a loud clunk, then a hiss as pneumatic motors kick into action. Two five-foot by five-foot chunks of the floor lift up and slide to the side. The sound that follows that is vaguely reminiscent of an old-style elevator.
"I've never seen that before," Tracy notes, watching the floor while bringing up her holo-sculpt program with quick hand gestures.
"If I might ask," Cadena inquires, "what sort of construct is your small companion? It has a very impressive cloaking ability, particularly considering the irregular surfaces of its form."
The tiny dragon looks smug. It can tell when it's being complimented.
The lift that comes out bears what looks for all intents and purposes like an exploded robot. Though ... something seems a bit off on it. It's not been dismantled, though. It's actually opened itself up by what appears to be dozens of small pistons connecting to overlapping bits of primered dull metal plating. This exposes band after band of synthetic myomer muscles interconnecting along its internal skeletal structure, though that structure implies that even when closed up it would be 'hollow'. "He's an Avatar. Just like from the game. He came back with me through the Fracture four years back," Jason explains as he grabs some tools from one of his tables. "Bio-organic, best I can make out. He's hard to classify as he defies common science. We share a neural bond so that even though he can't talk like you can, I can make out his emotions easily enough over the link."
"Is that what it looks like?" Tracy asks when the suit is raised up. "My mom would totally leave my dad for you if it was." She's got her mirror-shade VR goggles on, but they're set transparent at the moment.
"I am not familiar with 'Fracture,'" Cadena says apologetically, watching the curious machinery, "or with this particular model. I am afraid that my training did not really cover much about the other field-tested beta models - only the barest general overview of Avatars game lore, since a 'full immersion' play-acting role wasn't part of my assignment."
"It depends on what you think it is," Jason remarks to Tracy. "As for the Fracture ... basically about four years ago one of Avatar's AI's went rogue, the White. It began a plan to merge its reality with ours through the use of the quantum cores that powered the game. Myself, Randall, and Holly ended up trapped in that virtual world. In fact, we nearly died there. It was ... well, nightmare doesn't do it justice. We managed to escape ... then the White broke the bonds between its world and ours ... at the former theme park out in California. It was ... touch and go, but we managed to shut it down before the rift spread. That's the Fracture, condensed version."
"And one of the humans involved tried to kill me and my dad, too," Tracy adds, since she figures Cadena needs that information too.
"A few good things came out of it, though," Jason adds as he starts tinkering on one of the joints in the lift. "RIU, my friend and companion. We saved a young woman named Akiko and her Avatar as well. You may have heard of her avatar, actually. Inari ... the musician."
"That ... is a lot of information that I will have to process," Cadena says, turning to Tracy. "Your mother did not ... brief me on such ... details?"
"It was awhile ago, and not likely to still be a threat," Tracy tells Cadena. To Jason she says, "It's a powered suit of some kind, right?"
The white dog seems to be deep in thought over this, and curiously regards RIU with renewed interest.
RIU looks back at Cadena innocently. It blinks its large blue eyes.
"Yep," Jason admits as he tinkers with one of the points where the 'muscle' bundles connect. "I started this project a few weeks after things calmed down back then. The whole experience made me realize how vulnerable I was. It's also really frustrating to watch your friends nearly die and feel helpless to do anything. Most of it is salvage from military vehicles and old robots. I've had the time to select the parts that still worked to specification, at least."
"That is quite an impressive construction to be built primarily from salvage," Cadena says, nodding approvingly.
"I built robots for years beforehand," Jason explains as he grabs a rag to wipe down his wrench. "Similar concept. Plus my time in the diadem of worlds made me consider alternate ways to do things. Nothing like fixing an impossible ship to challenge you to do the impossible back home. Besides, it gave me something to focus on. Helped me recover."
Cadena gets a distant look in his eyes for a moment, nodding slowly. "Ah yes. I never answered your question from earlier."
Tracy remembers what she's doing, and transfers data from her program to the desk system, and fires up the mister for the holo display. She throws her wireframe from Jason's scan onto it, then overlays the first 'skin' - which looks pretty much like herself, except that the hair is longer, straighter and shiny black, and the eyes are yellow. She's dressed in a long leather trenchcoat, leather pants and a leather corset, with lots of brass fiddly-bits, extra belts and buckles, big buttons and a holstered pistol that looks retro-futuristic. She runs another process, which starts removing elements that can't be simulated by the sneaksuit's short-range holographic system, thus losing the coat and pistol.
"I'm an artificial biological construct," the white dog explains. "I'm a beta for a planned program in 'real world' Avatar companions. I am modeled after the 'White Cadena' Avatar type from the game - 'Cunning' and 'Metal Element' type - but since it appears that I am the only one of my variety in the beta field-testing, I am known simply as 'Cadena.'"
"So, you're making a wearable tank in case reality starts to fall apart again?" Tracy asks.
"So, an attempt to replicate RIU or Mara, then?" Jason asks of Cadana, "The only two Avatars to survive. Well, there's Inari too, but she's quite different for an Avatar, thanks to the ... eh, not important." Tracy's question gets a bit of a huff before he answers, "I'm building a wearable tank because certain people like to get me in trouble. Lets be honest, when you look at me the first thing that comes to mind is not 'intimidating', is it? I would be lucky to win a fight with a bowl of spaghetti. Plus living in Old Town it's only a matter of time before the gangs start to bother me."
"When you mentioned the neural interface," Cadena says, "and especially in light of the superior cloaking technology, I'll admit I was wondering whether 'RIU' was a rather more advanced model. The invasive methods necessary to establish a neural interface, I would find hard to imagine being a requirement for general commercial use."
"So you started building this before you ever really met me. Is it legal?" Tracy asks. She keeps working the virtual controls that only she can see through her glasses, and parts of the skin begins flashing, as the 'layers' are sorted for compiling into a suit skin.
"Oh, that. That's only because some many years back I had a feud with someone who, when they got the chance, dug around inside my head and left me a 'present' in the form of an experimental brain interface. It mainly had a kill switch, in case I ever became a problem. The Avatar system noticed this when we went through and decided to use it to better link me to RIU when he was created," Jason explains. "And as for legality of my project ... that's such a gray concept. I don't remember any laws that expressly forbid the use of 'enhancing technology' when defending your home."
"If I were my dad.. I'd find a loophole claiming it was a medical prosthesis of some sort," Tracy says. She wipes away the skin, leaving the wireframe, and puts up a new one: this time a humanoid panther. There are immediate issues, since the digitigrade legs intersect oddly with the wireframe legs.
Jason glances towards Tracy's work, then comments, "You do realize that Sasha's Avatar was a panther, don't you?" He shakes his head and gets back to work.
RIU peers at Tracy's work curiously. Beep?
"Not until after you showed me the recordings," Tracy grumbles. "I don't want to have to rebuild my entire VPC because of that." She makes some adjustments, and the trenchcoat and holster-belt appear on the feline, since those are likely to be real physical elements, along with the long hair. "At least now I know how I can help you with your project," she tells Jason with a grin.
"VPC?" Cadena asks curiously. "I was not aware that they had introduced new playable species into the Avatars game."
"I don't quite see how. This isn't the same as building virtual people," Jason notes. There's a loud crackle of blue and Jason ends up hopping backwards and shaking his hand. "Note to self, make sure the fusion battery is not installed while working," he grumbles.
"Ah, err.. actually it's for The Gloaming," Tracy admits to Cadena. "DanTech doesn't have the level of character AI that Avatars does, but they fixed that by making it player-vs-player and adding in shapeshifting."
Looking to Jason, Tracy remarks, "I know how the human body can move, however - better than you I bet. I can show you what degrees of motion you need in order to function, how much muscle control is required and where.. and probably how to move effectively when wearing it."
"And the hope of borrowing it, I imagine," Jason remarks to Tracy. "I've linked it to my implant, though. Should only work for me."
"Fascinating," Cadena says, as he walks about, examining the model. "I have somewhat limited experience with online virtual reality games in general, but I do have some equipment that is scheduled to be shipped to your apartment within the next few days, customized to my unusual characteristics. I would be happy to assist in any virtual model testing."
"Personally, I think VR games are a waste of time," Jason comments helpfully.
"That thing is way too bulky for me," Tracy notes. "I just want my sneaksuit. Anything heavier would slow me down." Hearing that Cadena comes with VR gear distracts her again. "You can help me test out my scapes then!" she says.
Cadena nods, tail wagging slightly. "I am to be helpful where I can."
Tracy smiles, then zooms in on the model's head, causing the panther face to become partly transparent. She then brings up a map of the sneaksuit's facial sensors, and another overlay of individual muscles.
"I suppose the plan of adding flight jets to it doesn't intrigue you, then," Jason quips. "I just have to get the gyro stabilizers able to cope with a fluctuating moment of inertia." He whacks some part of the suit with a hammer a few times. Apparently it isn't 'behaving'. "I hope you don't get too attached to that suit. Something has to happen with it before Irongrip causes real problems," he notes.
RIU pops up inside Jason's powered armor suit as if startled by the hammering, then winds around his arm to end on his shoulders.
The girl is busy concentrating on mapping human facial muscles to panther facial features, and adding weighted amplifiers to respond immediately. "Landing could be tricky," she notes. "But I'm sure you'll find me a replacement, Jason. I've got every confidence in your abilities.."
"Just realize if I die because of that sneaksuit, I'm going to send your mother all the pictures that suit took of you when you were trapped in it," Jason remarks rather flatly. "And next time it might be you up on that blimp instead of that obnoxious advertisement for that game. And I think by now you know I don't bluff ..."
"Why do you always try to blame me for everything," Tracy shoots back. "That suit is just as likely to kill you. In which case.. do I get all your stuff?" she then asks, smiling like a cat.
"Nope. RIU gets everything. He's cuter," Jason counters.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2010-11-29_girltalk.htmlWith RIU showing Cadena the recordings of the events leading up to the Fracture, there's a few minutes of relative quiet in the lab. Jason works on his suit, and Tracy silently continues her muscle-mapping for a holo-skin.
"Are you that uncomfortable with yourself that you wished you could shapeshift?" Jason finally asks while he's busy soldering a circuit. Either silence with someone else in the room bothers him, or the solder resin is making him loopy enough to actually talk.
"I'm not uncomfortable with myself that much," Tracy notes, pulling back and saving her work so far. "Not anymore. It's other people I have issues with. Hmmm." She glances over at the armored suit, then unloads her wireframes from the display and tries to poke around a bit in the directory it was original stored in. "You've got a scan wireframe of yourself in here, don't you?" she asks. "That's why you had the scanner - you needed the reference for designing that armor, right?"
"Sure do. I had to have something to work off of for the basic exoskeleton and outer skin," Jason answers. He grabs a damp rag and uses it to wipe down his soldering iron. The damp cloth sizzles from the heat. Unfortunately, the directory Tracy is in doesn't have anything other than her own wireframe in it.
Taking off her VR goggles, Tracy turns in her chair to watch Jason work. "So, if it had been Akiko who showed up on your doorstep instead of me, how would you have felt?" she asks in a casual tone.
"Ow!" Jason complains when he slips and lightly burns his fingertip with the soldering iron. He ends up sucking on that finger for a minute while glaring at Tracy. "I would have felt uncomfortable and worried," he answers after pulling his finger out with a small pop. "No one visits me unless they need something. After what she has been through I was hoping she would have a normal life again."
"And that's why you never kept in touch with her or Inari, right?" Tracy asks. "Because your life is dangerous, and that can extend to your friends and acquaintances. I know all about loved ones being used as leverage," Tracy claims. "It's what always ended my relationships. Women like dangerous men - the opposite doesn't hold. Even with the suit issue, I'm probably still in danger from Irongrip anyway, and always will be until my mom retires or changes jobs."
"You're in less physical danger with your mother than with me. People come to me to get things done or undone. This sometimes involves working with people who are ... of questionable morale fiber. Your mother deals with things at a more political level," Jason says. "and yes, that's part of the reason I didn't keep in contact with them. They don't need my problems too."
"But you're worried about them, right?" Tracy asks. "I bet Akiko is worried about Inari's behavior. I'm just surprised that... well, that you didn't give up all this grey-world stuff so you could be with them and not be a danger. Well, not a big danger." She taps her head with a finger at that, implying that the implant is an issue.
"That would have been taking advantage of them," Jason remarks and resumes his work on one of the circuit boards, setting each control wire carefully and solder-pinning it to the pad. "Or at least seemed like it. They had just survived having someone screw with them mentally and physically. Had I done anything ... it would have felt like I was taking advantage of that."
"You could have given them that choice though," Tracy says, turning her chair side-to-side. "I didn't have a choice about being put at risk, but you didn't give them a choice at all. I mean.. of course they needed you - you literally recreated them! Inari wouldn't exist at all without you, you're her father.. and it sounds like she's acting like a girl without a strong father figure, frankly. When are you going to call Akiko?"
"Nothing prevented them from calling me," Jason points out as he thrusts the soldering iron into its holder a bit harder than necessary. As for the answer to when he'll call her, he remains silent on that.
"Do you really still have that kill switch in your head, or have you found a way to disable it?" Tracy asks next, twisting her lips a bit with concern.
"It should be disabled now. Had to hack it to disable it," Jason answers. He looks up, then asks, "Worried I might drop dead at any moment and you having to explain to the police what happened?"
"Well, more the former than the latter," Tracy says. She watches Jason some more, then asks, "Jason, have you ever actually been happy?"
"That's an odd question, isn't it?" Jason non-answers. He flicks off the power to his soldering rig. After he unhooks the board he was working on, he reclines back in the old chair. It creaks in complaint. "Sure. I've been happy. Helping Akiko and Inari escape their prison made me feel better than anything I've ever done, for example."
"What about since then?" Tracy asks, scooting her chair closer. "There must be some reason you choose to live like this, when you could probably create a whole new identity for yourself and get a legitimate position with a security company."
"I have more freedom with my own company," Jason claims. "I can do what I want when I want and I don't have to justify my actions to anyone. Plus, someone has to be the interface to the seedier parts of society in order to make things better, right?"
"Okay, but why stick your neck out for me?" the girl asks, rolling next to Jason's chair. "You could have just turned over the suit and collected the reward towards what I'd owed you for your work. I wonder why Irongrip needs sneaksuits anyway?"
"Because they're not above shakedowns, theft, or frankly, assassinations," Jason says. He spins his chair so he can better look at the teenager. "Would you have preferred that I turn the suit over? Or throw you out?" he asks.
"No, but I'm trying to get a handle on you, Jason Edwards," Tracy says, and taps the man's nose with a fingertip. "You show that you care in ways you hope people won't learn about or notice, it seems. Because, I guess, you don't want anyone to feel they owe you.. because that's like taking advantage, somehow. You aren't used to any sort of relationship where one party isn't trying to screw over the other somehow, are you?"
Jason watches Tracy now with almost stone-cold eyes. "I don't want anyone to mourn me if there's a news story some day I was found face down in the gutter," he admits. "It isn't about taking advantage it's ... I don't want to hurt someone like that. Inari almost died in that last fight with the White. We thought she did for a moment. I've been burned, shocked and worse," he says, then taps his head, "but none of them came close to how much that hurt." He shrugs, then says, "And perhaps there is fear that it's all fake and they will screw me over. I can't explain it better than that. Sorry."
"There will always be someone to mourn you," Tracy claims. "So.. I guess having all the freedom you want is pretty nice then. But it sounds lonely. I don't see why you can't go out with your friends every so often. Even if in disguise! Is this place under surveillance you think?"
"Oh, probably is at some level," Jason says and shrugs. "I do have criminal record, after all. S'why I have white noise generators and the entire building is a faraday cage."
"Can't let those sneak Faradays escape," Tracy notes, nodding her head. She spins her chair around so that she's leaning forward against the back of it. "Do you have any dreams? I mean.. 'this is what I'd like' sort of dreams, not the psychedelic spiders and gumball bushes sort of dreams. Although you probably have those too, right?"
beep! A computer display indicates Jason has an incoming phone call from a Lt. Randall Cranston, CERT.
"Saving the world," Jason drolls. "Oh, wait, I already did that. Other than that, I wish I could ... oh, phone call."
Tracy sticks her tongue out at the computer terminal.
Jason leans way over and flops his hand around until he hits the key to pass the call through. "Bob's Donut hut, where everything is wholesale. You get a lot of dough for a little dough. How may I abuse you today?" he answers the video-call.
"I'd like a bacon doughnut, do you deliver?" replies the unperturbed and actually kind of dashing looking Hispanic officer on the other end of the call.
Tracy can't resist, so comes up behind Jason and drapes her arms over his shoulders, her face pressed cheek-to-check against his. "Hey Randall!" she chirps.
"Sure do. And this week's special is you get your very own wench with it," Jason says without missing a beat. He gestures to Tracy (who is now cheek to cheek with him. "She's almost housebroken. But, I understand you ex-cop types are good with whips..."
Randall has managed to keep his neat trimmed mustache and short beard all these years, but he's lost the captain's hat and pirate jacket in favor of CERT blues, which actually make him look like a responsible officer of the law. He raises an eyebrow. "Oh hey, free wench! Awesome! Anyway, I got your message, I checked it out. The advert goes to a front for a cyberterrorist group, 'Face Reality'. We've been trying to get the goods on them for a while, but..." He leans forward. "They're pretty tough nuts to crack. We tried to get an agent in a while ago, haven't heard from him though. Frankly, I'm worried."
"Oh, them. I recently had a run-in with them all thanks to Wench here. They may claim they just want to wake people up ... but their sites are protected by a red-class computer with ICE defenses. I made it past their first layer, but they were able to lock onto my stream randomizer. I had to link-sever before I ended up lobotomized," Jason says. "It's interesting that they're running a business up in the towers. Rather high-profile for them. I warned the kid who was going there for a job to stay away, but ... hm. RIU might have his bike-registration recorded. I could send it to you later if you want. You might be able to use him as an agent ... but he's a terrible liar."
Randall shakes his head. "If you can warn the kid off, you should. I've got a feeling they're bad news, and if they have a feeling he's leaking information, he's likely to wind up face down in the river."
"Do you want me to try and infiltrate them, then?" Jason half-offers. "I don't have a feeling, I know they're bad news. Their little joke viruses can actually be lethal in certain circumstances."
"It's only one of a bunch of cyberthreats we have to look at, and honestly I'm not sure how high priority they are compared to the rest just yet, or else I'd be happy to take you up on that. Our budget only goes so far," Randall says. "There're the VR is Real crowd - good thing for us their jokes tend to run to nonlethal things like surprise-holograms in public places - and then there're the Meat is Murder fanatics, we just recalled the last batch of blipvert-infested burger packages." He runs down a laundry list. "Any reason Face Reality's on your docket?"
"Hey, how much backing would they need to have defenses like that?" Tracy asks, looking thoughtful.
"Their recent work, a virus called The Emperors New Clothes, almost killed someone," Jason explains as he uses his thumb to point towards Tracy. "I discovered another victim of it and I was trying to erase some rather unflattering pictures of said victim from their site. I'll try again soon, now that I know what to expect." Jason's brow twitches a bit as a thought comes to him. "They don't like things that look like something from virtual reality. Randall ... have there been any recorded threats against Inari? She does look like a fantasy creature ... well, she is one."
Randall answers Tracy, "The machine to run defenses like those isn't that expensive. You can get the civilian version off a small business catalog. The lethal version of defenses is where you're either military or, well, illegal, and if they're cyberterrorists, they're already facing a long list of charges, adding one more's not going to make a difference. Now, the fact they've got a front in a Tower, that suggests they've got some big corporate backing."
"What about.. well, Penny Arcadia herself?" Tracy asks. "She's being trying to file a wrongful death suit against Avatars because her daughter died and was obsessed with the game. I don't know the circumstances of her death though."
"As for threats against Inari, or Penny Arcadia, or anyone else... Well, I wish I could say I knew, but that's beyond CERT's mandate. We're just protecting the Internet and stuff on the Internet," Randall says spreading his hands apologetically. "Inari hasn't called me up with any news of something like that, for what that's worth."
"She keeps in touch with you?" Tracy asks, leaning forward more over Jason's shoulder. "Do you know how to contact her?"
"Well, I haven't heard from her either about anything. I figured if anyone she would have called you," Jason admits, "Or Akiko."
Randall shakes his head. "I gave her my contact in case she ran into any trouble, but... The last time I tried to give her a call, I got some Voya flacky that told me he'd let her know that I called. You'd think they owned her or something!"
"Why do people keep telling me things that make me worry even more?" Jason complains loudly.
"Oh hey, did you catch her last song?" Randall asks. "I thought it was really sweet! Nice change of pace from all the death-rock."
"Last song? No. I ... don't follow her music," Jason admits as he fidgets uncomfortably. "Is it online anywhere?"
"Maybe we should just get concert tickets," Tracy notes, then blinks and slips around sit in Jason's lap, so she can lean forward into the screen. "New song? When did it come out?"
Randall says, "Last week. I've got a subscription. Here, let me..." He tap-tap-taps. A media player box appears, with a button requesting that Jason authorize the one-time N$0.05 charge to Voya's digital rights service.
Tracy scoots over so Jason can reach the screen.
"Oh ... look, they'll give me signing keys. I would never do anything questionable with those," Jason mutters. Still, it is a bit hard to authorize with a crazy teenager in his lap. She moves in just enough time to avoid him making a comment about the size of her butt.
"It's a good thing you didn't call the other day, Randall," Tracy says while waiting and adjusting herself.
Randall raises an eyebrow at Wench.
"There, take my nickel you bloodsuckers," Jason grumbles and approves the amount.
The media player fades to black. A Gregorian chant, crashing beats, the sound of hard boots drumming against a metal deck. Stars appear, then the silhouette of a city. And on a rooftop, a vixen holding a sniper rifle, shadowy, made of night. She raises it, slams a round in place.
"How ... cheery?" Jason squeaks as he slides down a bit in his chair ... and takes Tracy with him.
Tracy sits half-on, half-off Jason's lap now, holding on with an arm around his shoulders, and doesn't say any more as she watches the video.
o Heart of darkness! o she sings, and brings the rifle back down, only now it's a guitar. Her band, Fracture, fades in behind her. o Enthralled by the shadows, kissed by the Devil... o
"This isn't death rock?" Jason mutters. He's not sure which is more disturbing ... this video or the fact Tracy is trying to ... cuddle him.
It goes on in that vein for several minutes, the scene shifting around them to suggest they're part of some demonic army. They are forced to do terrible things, and then their deeds are used against them. The world lies in ruins behind them.
And then suddenly the music goes all quiet, and a ray of light appears. The golden fur of her face gleams. o But even for a sinner like me, there's still a prayer. A tear from heaven, relief from despair. o
The discomfort only grows for Jason. Is this a call for help? An answer to an anonymous message?
The drummer brings his sticks up, spins them in dazzling silver circles, and then brings them down again. And Inari is off again, pumping her guitar, o Heart of darkness! Candle in the shadows, chased by the Devil... o They are rebels against the angels of darkness. Terribly outnumbered, there's no chance they can succeed. But they choose their fate. And one by one, they die, but they die as heroes.
And at the last, Inari raises her guitar, now a sniper rifle again, and levels it at the screen. She squeezes ever so gently... And the screen fades to white.
Randall studies Jason's face, obviously waiting to see how he responds.
"Man, I wonder who does her scenics?" Tracy asks.
The usually hard-edge Jason has seems to melt. His jaw rocks slightly as if words want to come but something prevents them from doing so. "That was about us, wasn't it, Randall?" he finally manages to ask the screen. "But ... we didn't die. It all ended fine, right?"
"Maybe she means it's going to happen again?" Tracy suggests. "A second Fracture? I don't understand it all, but.. the original Avatar's game sort of did become a separate reality right, that you had to split off from ours? And the game now reflects some of what actually happens in that world... maybe. All I know is I don't like to be around my virtual alter-ego there anymore."
"I don't know, but I do know she's been into death-rock for a while. Nihilism, destruction, the world will fall into chaos, that sort of thing. It appears her fan base quite liked that," Randall says. "Some are taking this new song like it's some kind of betrayal. Others say it's a return to how she was in the old days."
"So.." Tracy says, looking from Jason to Randall's screen image. "Ask her what it's about?"
"You can't just call rock stars," Jason says with a sigh. "They have a committee you have to get by."
"So?" Tracy asks, smiling. "Don't they also have white-lists of people they're always willing to see?"
"One I am certain I am not on," Jason remarks dryly.
Randall grins. "Well... I've been thinking about that, and I think there's at least one way to make sure you can see her," he says. "At least if you have the right equipment, which I don't."
"Well, share Officer Cranberries!" Tracy prompts.
"Break into the system and add yourself to the list is one," Jason remarks, "Second would be to apply to be a 'roadie', I hear they're hiring. Third would be to sneak in. Fourth would be to fight in..."
"I bet I could get in as a roadie," Tracy offers. "She wants stunt people? I can do that."
"Voya security is nothing to mess with," Randall cautions. "They don't use lethal measures but they're notoriously tough to crack and even nonlethals will still leave you out cold for a good long while if you miss and they get a blipvert through your screens."
"Like that ever stops me," Jason remarks and rolls his eyes.
Randall continues, "Sneaking in's the route I'd take. Except, instead of sneaking into where she lives, where there'll be tons of static defense, you figure out from her channel where she's going - and then you wait there. Not that there aren't problems with that route!"
"Too bad we didn't have an invisibility cloak or something," Tracy laments, pushing her lips to one side of her face. She seems to express a lot with her lips.
Randall outlines the basics of the Voya security model. "They've got plainclothes security that sweeps the area, does spot checks on everyone and if they think you'll cause drama of the kind they don't want on the Inari show, they usher you out of the way. With stunners if they have to. Beyond that, if you want to have a private conversation, there're cameras watching her 24/7."
Jason smacks the back of Tracy's head. "I might consider doing that. It's a good thing I still have that old bullet proof vest. Not that it will stop a sniper rifle ..." he muses. "As for cameras, bah. RIU could short those out, easy. Or I hack them and get them to play a generic loop."
"Half the people wherever she goes are paid to follow scripts," the CERT officer says half-disbelievingly, half warning. "Media stars like Inari are big news and everyone wants even a bit piece. They think you're horning in on their action, they'll swarm you themselves."
Rubbing the back of her head, Tracy points out, "Can't RIU just fly in, invisibly, and deliver a message to Inari directly?"
"A written one maybe. He can't speak," Jason reminds Tracy.
Randall adds, "Of course, this is purely hypothetical and I am in no way condoning a violation of any laws. I'm just outlining the difficulties someone might have, were they sufficiently motivated to try and get through to Inari in some way."
"Or on a chip," Tracy suggests. "Something small the cameras might miss just showing up, especially if it appears in Inari's lap. Or RIU could catch her in the shower or someplace they won't have cameras. I mean, even you don't have cameras in the bathroom."
"Of course you aren't. You've never broken any yourself, Capt'n," Jason retorts. "I'll look up her tour dates and see where she's going. Maybe I'll look her up."
"Do you know if she talks to Akiko though, Randall?" Tracy asks. "If anyone could get a message to her, I'd think it'd be her Siamese twin."
The Hispanic internet police officer shakes his head. "Akiko has..." He waves a hand, trying to grasp the right way to put it. "Issues with Inari. Self-confidence issues. I try not to mention her, and she seems happier that way."
"Are you dating her?" Tracy asks, with raised eyebrows.
"She's nosy," Jason remarks. "Too nosy sometimes."
"Me? No, no," Randall says, laughing. "She's made it very clear she's trying to be independent. Do for herself, show she doesn't need to rely on an Avatar like Inari used to be, or a big strong man like me..." He flexes. "To protect her. But there is a cute new intern who joined up recently."
"Anyway, I'll send you what we have on Face Reality. Was there anything else you wanted to know?" asks Randall.
Tracy sticks her tongue out. "So Akiko doesn't talk to you just to have someone who knows what she went through to talk to?"
"Hey, I don't kiss and tell," Randall says with a wink. "Or tell, even without the kiss."
"Have they done anything more serious than pranks, for one. Two, is there any pattern? Have you plotted out what individuals have been targeted? Or specific product lines? I don't buy they're just 'in it' for the thrill," Jason suggests. "Also, look for any connections to Irongrip. It's just a gut feeling."
"Their threat profile's definitely escalating," Randall says. "It used to be they just defaced websites, but they've been spreading out. Stuff like the Emperor's New Clothes, but also spreading fake links to try and divert people's VR connections to mousetrap realities, and sabotaging holodisplays to burn out in the real world."
"I'll be sure to check my interface at home," Tracy notes.
Randall continues, "They've been very good at avoiding a consistent pattern. Their attacks are worldwide, but that doesn't mean much, you can set a delayed timer on a program as easily as I."
"And you don't have enough budget to deal with them? Seriously?" Jason asks as his own brow arches up at that. "Don't think for a moment I won't send CERT a bill if I uncover anything," he comments and waggles his finger at the display.
"Irongrip? That sounds familiar somehow," Randall says.
"Vivius Irons. Left Avatar LLC, started his own company," Jason reminds.
The CERT officer frowns. "That could be bad news."
"Everything is bad news. If it claims to be good news, it's just lying," Jason notes.
"He always seemed like a bloodthirsty guy, I couldn't believe they'd make someone like him a head of security at Avatars," Randall says bluntly. "Shoot first, ask questions after, that's the way they raise them in the Empire."
"Anyway, it's past my shift, so anything else?" Randall asks.
"Yes. When will you shave off that ridiculous mustache? The next time you visit my office I'm trying you to a chair and getting the clippers," Jason answers. "Have a good night, Randall. I'll call you if I uncover anything useful."
tying...
Randall laughs. "Over and out! And remember that bacon doughnut!"
As soon as the connection goes blank, Tracy sits up in Jason's lap and turns towards him. "Does it seem suspicious to you that Randall didn't even blink at seeing me here?" she asks.
"Not really?" Jason remarks and shrugs. "You don't think I didn't run background checks on you after you invaded my home? And why are you sitting in my lap?"
"So that's how he knew I was here, and not from some spy camera he has set up across the street to keep watching on your comings and goings?" Tracy asks, looking.. moderately relieved. She does get up out Jason's lap though. "What was in the background check? Anything from my school record?"
"He knows better than to spy on me. The last time he tried that he ended up with a month's worth of video footage from St. John's Nudist Colony for the Morbidly Obese," Jason says with a smirk. "As for what was in your background check, well ... that's secret. I need blackmail material, after all."
"Hah, right," Tracy says, looking dubious. "Probably just the stuff about being under police protection after the house fire." She returns to the workstation and says, "I'm ready to test the first skin now. Where'd you stash the suit?"
"I'll let you think that. It's more fun that way," Jason remarks. He waves from his chair towards one of the old lockers along the northern wall. "First locker on the right, the combination is 3-3-3. Half of the Beast."
"What's the other half?" Tracy asks, unable to help herself as she goes to the locker to retrieve the sneaksuit.
"You," Jason deadpans.
"Do I frighten you, Mr. Edwards?" the girl asks, holding the limp gray suit up against her front and waving one of the empty sleeves at Jason.
"Nope," Jason says, "Don't forget I've had that suit for a while. I might have modified it for my safety..."
"So long as it's charged and still working," Tracy says as she brings it back to the workstation, then tries to find the data port on it. "How do I do the skin transfer?" she finally asks.
"Access panel on the right arm," Jason comments as he spins his chair slowly around. "Plug the fibre-link into the port under it, then bring up the control display and copy the file over."
Tracy takes her time, making sure the connectors are seated properly, then bringing up the control panel on the left sleeve. It's a bit awkward when the suit is unoccupied, but she does get it transferred. "Okay, it's not giving any errors," she announces. Then she kicks off her shoes and starts unbuttoning her blouse. "I'm wearing compatible underwear this time," she says.
That doesn't encourage Jason enough to turn towards Tracy. He makes sure his chair faces away. "If you don't mind, I won't exactly trust that. You'll somehow manage to embarrass yourself. Or try to mess with me," he comments and waves his hand over the back of his chair.
"Second Skin wrinkle and crease-free black bandeau and matching panties," Tracy says, supposedly to put Jason at ease. "Skin tight and broke my budget, but they are comfy," she notes as she wiggles into the suit, then seals up the front and 'assumes the position' so it can contract to its skin-tight operational mode. "I bet you wear old polyester boxers with holes in them. And as for embarrassing.. that's your job: you have to give me a challenge, since I gave you one last time."
"In other words, you bought fetishwear," Jason notes as he laughs. "A new generation of latex underwear. Your mother would lock you in a closet if she knew. As for what I wear ... that's something you'll never knew! You're too young."
"So, you'll show me when I'm 21 then?" Tracy asks, coming around in front of Jason. She appears to be wearing a copper-brown leather midriff-baring corset and matching painted-on leather pants - both of which seem to consist of at least 25% belts and brass buckles for some reason. Black leather boots and fingerless gloves complete the clothes, while her eyes appear to be yellow and cat-slit and her hair.. is gone. There's just a fuzzy blackness where it should be. "I don't have my wig or trenchcoat or steam-pistol.. you'll have to imagine those," she says.
"Very neo-goth," Jason remarks as he nods his head once, "With a touch of hare-khrishna baldness, and mutant eyes." He leans sideways a bit and props his head up with his hand. "Why can't you be happy with how you look normally? You're not hideous or anything..."
"Do you not grasp the concept of a costume?" Tracy asks, and turns around slowly. "Do you see any clipping errors? This is for a game convention, remember? So I can have a costume that shapeshifts - once I get that skin finished."
"I don't feel the urge to hide in a costume," Jason claims and waves his hand. He sits upright again and leans forward to get a closer look. "It shows too much skin and curves," he observes, "Too ... sexy... And your left butt-cheek looks slightly larger than the right. The skin reflection isn't uniform."
"Rats," Tracy complains. "I was afraid I'd have to resort to wearing real clothes over it, but then I'd have to give up the cool leg trick." She looks at the left arm, whatever display she sees being projected by the suit's face-veil. She does something.. and vanishes.
"Cool leg trick?" Jason asks. He doesn't even twitch when Tracy vanishes. "I think you turned off the projectors, because nothing is showing now."
"Stealth mode," Tracy's disembodied voice says. "This is pretty weird. If not for the virtual outline I wouldn't know where my hands and feet are. Did you hack the suit so you could see through it's microcameras?"
"No, but if you connect in the fibre-cable from my system again I could access it," Jason suggests. He grabs an old yard stick leaning against his work table and waves it around near him to see if he whacks Tracy.
"Hey!" the voice goes, from a few feet more distant. "Wow, the springheels work. What's the point if you have to be plugged in? You need to do it through your implant, so you can see all around wherever I am and guide me. Wait.. did you mess with the battery?"
"I haven't made a portable link yet. I've been busy. Cut me some slack," Jason grumbles. "And no, I haven't messed with the battery. Why?"
The suit reappears, a gray humanoid until Tracy pulls the veil and hood back. "It's like half empty already," she notes while shaking her hair out. "Just after a few minutes of use! There must be an auxiliary power cell pack that goes with it or something.."
"High resolution holo-projection requires a lot of power," Jason points out. "Might be modifiable with axillary packs or through induction charging as long as you're relatively near a power source."
The girl sighs. "The non-military version lasts a lot longer, but I still need a permit for that," she notes, looking upset. "All this trouble, and not only can't I keep it - it's not even practical for what I wanted." She unseals it and starts wiggling out. "I didn't even get the skin right," she mutters.
Jason spins himself back around to look away as Tracy removes the suit. "Are you trying to make me feel guilty enough to try and modify the suit for you?" he asks. "And do you want to try and get the comparable one through the, ah, black market? How much money do you have, because it is going to cost around $1000 and I can't foot all of that."
"I guess an un-registered one is more expensive," Tracy notes. "If we turn this one in for $500.. I could probably come up with the rest. I could come up with some practical use for it." She sets the suit back on workstation, then walks over to Jason. "But first.. is my left butt-cheek bigger? Maybe it's the panties.."
Jason tests this by grabbing both of Tracy's butt-cheeks. "Hmm," hre remarks, then graps a rather large pair of calipers from his work table and measures. "Nope, it isn't," he claims, "The skinning was just off. Less gloss on one than the other."
Tracy is frozen solid, her fingers and toes splayed out. "Ah.. good to know," she finally mutters, and walks back to where she left her clothes. "Have you come up with a challenge for me yet?"
"Haven't really thought about it," Jason admits as he spins his chair around again."I could challenge you to find a sane boyfriend," he offers...
"Hmmm," Tracy notes, then sets her pants back down and begins to do some yoga exercises to work off the muscle tension and improve her mood a bit. "It can't be an impossible task, according to the rules. What do you think Randall suspects about us?"
"That is hardly an impossible task," Jason points out. "He'll also think nothing once I explain to him you're insane and seem to delight in tormenting me."
"You don't understand," Tracy says, as she sits on the floor and folds her legs into a lotus position. "All of my previous boyfriends were sane. That's why they never stuck around. A sane person avoids danger." She focuses on her breathing exercises then, trying to exhale her tension and disappointment with each breath.
"You could try avoiding danger. It might be a novel and new experience," Jason notes as she spins back around, slumps back over, and grins. He eyes the folded up suit next, and hmms. "You know, I could modify that so that I could get a feed from it ... then once it is returned we would know what was going on inside Irongrip."
"That could be worth doing then, if it's untraceable," Tracy says, her eyes closed as she relaxes. "I can't really avoid being a target. I think having a talking guard dog really underscores that point. You can teach me how to get out of locked rooms or handcuffs and stuff, can't you?"
"Oh the comments I could make about you and handcuffs," Jason quips. "And of course I can. Those are pretty easy."
The girl opens her eyes again, and gives Jason an odd look. "What about me and handcuffs?" she asks. "So you'll teach me?"
"I think you can figure it out. The handcuffs, I mean," Jason notes and shrugs. "And sure, I suppose I can teach you so long as you promise to behave."
Tracy unfolds, but instead of standing up, she flips over so she can walk on her hands over to Jason. "Actually, I don't know. You can't possibly be having naughty thoughts about me, after all."
"I can't? I could be imagining handcuffing you you a bus and sending you on a long trip," Jason points out.
"See, I wouldn't have thought of that," Tracy remarks as she flips back upright, and finally starts putting her clothes back on now that she's done with her yoga.
"Or I could handcuff you to your dog," Jason remarks. "A girl and her dog; a tale of post-apocalyptic oddness. Hm, no, been done."
"I thought 'hands behind the back' was the standard," Tracy notes, buttoning up. "Unless they use slap-straps or zip cords."
"For you it's feet behind the ears," Jason quips, bemused.
"I didn't know you were that kinky," Tracy quips, and flutters her eyelashes at Jason as she gets her shoes back on. "There, nothing too 'sexy' showing now, so you should be happy."
"I'm never happy," Jason comments as he licks the floor and sends his wheeled chair sliding across the floor back to his desk. He flips the monitor back on and goes to bring up Inari's 'MyUniverse' page to check for the next concert date ... and to see if anyone commented/replied to a note he left there.
licks -> kicks
Tracy decides to be helpful by.. collecting her chipware from the workstation. Then she stands behind Jason's chair and kneads his shoulders. "If you can't be happy, at least be comfortable."
There are 277 replies. Mostly from fans wondering if Inari had been involved in some kind of air car accident in her mysterious past, and who the anonymous person is. Other fans are accusing the anonymous commenter of being some kind of "troll", or making it up out of sheer randomness.
"Whomever this commenter is," one informed-seeming fellow says. "He clearly struck a nerve, because Inari seems to have used this 'heart of darkness' concept in her newest song. Good thing she's protected against idea-theft accusations by the TOS, huh?"
"LOL she probably wuz gonna do that anyway," another fan says.
And so it goes.
Jason looks ... moderately amused by all the replies. His fingers slide over the keys, pondering adding another comment, just to fuel the fire a bit more. Of course before he does that he has to make sure it appears as anonymous. So ... he starts tapping to set up another anonymous comment route to the site.
"Ooo, you're popular!" Tracy notes, watching what Jason does. "Are you going to steal all the credit card info of the repliers?"
"Do you remember the moment in between; the threshold between worlds? We had a choice that day: To stay in the world of dreams or to escape. To sever the bonds that held all of us, but you most of all. I was terrified that day. Not for myself, but for you. To escape meant walking away from all you knew and into the unknown. To fail meant remaining trapped forever. We succeeded and you chose. When the chains fell, you walked through that door with all of us. I am so glad you came with us ... and I cannot express how sorry I am that I have not been there enough for you. I have not forgotten you; and I hope some day you will forgive me for failing you," Jason types out. His fingers linger over the send button for over a minute. It's funny how keys sound so loud sometimes when a choice is made. His finger descends and with a click, the message is posted. "Go ahead, make some remark," he tells Tracy in a quieter voice as his head tilts down and to the side so that he's looking back up at he
at her
"Do you write poetry?" Tracy asks. "You should try if you haven't," she urges, and gives his shoulders a squeeze.
"Bah. I built stuff and annoy people," Jason remarks. "That's all I'm good at."
"Poetry is all about structure and annoyance," Tracy claims. "Think she'll take the bait this time? I mean, it couldn't be more clear that you wrote this one."
"She knows I wrote the last one," Jason says as he flips away from the comment page and onto the 'scheduled appearances' page.
"Appearing soon, LIVE and UNEDITED, Inari in Festival of Fools, a hitlist of all rock media's greatest living performers! December 21, from noon to 9 AM. Food! Music! And a presentation of cultural treasures from all over the world, just in time to find a perfect gift for that special someone in your life..." The webpage gives a variety of links. It'll apparently be held in the outdoors in the rebuilt New Times Square, in New York City.
"Festival of Fools? That doesn't exactly sound inviting," Jason mutters as he writes down the date and time. "And a bit of a distance. I'm not sure I can get the suit that far. Hm."
"Get it that far?" Tracy asks. "Hello.. hotels? Make a reservation now for before the event, and there'll be time to set up and a base of operations."
"It's not that easy. How do I move that," Jason says and waves towards his nearly complete armored suit. "Without being seen."
"Well," Tracy says, looking at the suit, and wondering why Jason would want to bring it - what's he planning? "Is it waterproof?"
"Haven't tried. Theoretically is," Jason says.
Ding! Kimon reports, "You have video email."
"Video e-mail? Who is mailing me?" Jason has to wonder. "Kimon, play mail on monitor three."
The video email is from 'Your Friend in the Gloaming'; the thumbnail image shows a cheerful-looking werewolf waving a massive paw, his other hand holding up the camera.
"Hey, friend, I wanted to thank you for getting me up in the air," the werewolf says. His voice is thin and high, belying his huge chest, but it's recognizable as Mike's. Behind him is a standard indoor mall bakery, Duamutef's Donuts. "I got the job! It's totally sweet, they've got us playing video games. The only downer of it is that they keep reminding us it's a game every 15-20 minutes. Well, I guess the idea is, know your enemy, don't fall into the trap they do."
"Sewers," Tracy mutters. "New York has miles and miles of sewers.. Is that the kid from earlier? What's that about know your enemy?"
"Oh now he just looks silly. Who wants to be a werewolf?" Jason has to ask and waves at the screen. "And games, indeed. He's working for Face Reality now, the ones who hacked that skin on your suit. They're up to something with that game. You might want to reconsider playing it."
Mike continues, "So, the idea is that we're going to stage some in-Gloaming demonstrations. Annoy the players, get Face Reality some face time-- har, see what I did there?-- and shake things up. Reason they need hackers is 'cause that way we can deal with any anachrony monitors that pop up. They gave us some sweet macros, so we can hack 'em right in-game. S'how I'm getting this message out, I piggybacked it into their player message system. Game thinks I'm just messaging my bratty li'l brother." He grins.
"Anyway, if you need to get a message back to me, they're trying to keep us incommunicado, I guess so we don't leak their plans or something, but they don't know my bro Adam plays. He can get a line to me. Over and out!" A contact address appears at the bottom of the scren.
Kimon says, "Message ends."
Jason rubs his forehead with his right thumb. "It's not going to be that simple or easy, Mike. They're up to more than just that. They have heavy corporate backing ... and Randall did say it's likely you'll end up floating in a river. Dammit, why do kids never listen?" he remarks and glares at Tracy. PArticularly towards the latter part of his statement.
"Ahh.. geez!" Tracy fumes, digging her fingers into Jason's shoulders. "Can't I have one fun activity that isn't getting spoiled by some freaky event?"
"Ow," Jason complains.
The mechanical kitsune replies to Tracy, "No."
"Oh!" the girl says, easing her grip and going back to gentle rubbing. "Sorry, I don't my own strength sometimes. I should warn the Admins about this stuff... if I can figure out how to do it without seeming like I'm actually involved.."
"No. Stay out of it. You want a fun normal time, then don't get involved with this," Jason points out, exasperated. "Plus, if you say anything, you likely endanger all of them."
"This is world you live in is incredibly frustrating, you know that?" Tracy says. "No wonder you're so repressed! I mean, you could have gotten the data on my butt from the wireframe scan.."
"That wasn't what you wanted. You were trying to tease me and I refused to take the bait," Jason points out.
"I didn't think you'd grab me," Tracy mutters. "Flirting isn't as much fun when your target actually does stuff. Anyway, what's the plan you're cooking up for the concert? Or just gonna wait and see if Inari replies to your comment? I mean, if she doesn't, then maybe she's not involved with the site at all or not allowed to respond or something! Mind control.. that would explain a lot.."
"She won't respond on the site. I'll have to look into hotels and such. It won't happen today," Jason remarks. "I have to contact Desoto, find my bullet proof vest and that Mk2 police gun I have ... then go deal with your suit. You are going to seriously owe me."
"Police gun?" Tracy asks, letting go of Jason's shoulders. "You can get stuff like that?"
"What? You can carry anything. Legality is another matter," Jason notes, "But yes, it is. I have a permit and it's keyed properly to me."
"So could you get a permit for a sub-military sneaksuit too?" Tracy asks, leaning in closer and smiling her cutest smile.
"No idea," Jason admits. "Maybe. And those smiles don't work on me, you know."
"If they did, I wouldn't use them," Tracy says perkily. "Do you want me to fix you anything for dinner?"
"Filet Mignon, rare, garlic mashed potatoes, carmelized carrots, and a nice port," Jason suggests.
"Do you have the ingredients for all that, at least?" Tracy asks. "Or is this my challenge?"
"I'm lucky if I have frozen pizza in the fridge. I'll probably order takeout, then scare the delivery guy with Kimon or RIU later. Why are you looking at me like that? It's a hobby! A lame one, but I have to find amusement somewhere," Jason notes and shakes his head. "So, no, it isn't. When I think of something, I'll be sure to tell you after it has started. Don't worry..."
Tracy gives Jason one of her odd, lips-pushed-to-the-side looks.. then leans in and kisses him on the mouth! "You're weird," she notes afterwards. "And that was because you have to get to first base before fondling me. This way it won't be so weird when you do it again. And I couldn't have gotten the port.. but I'll figure out how to make the rest. I do have a kitchen of my own, after all."
"Kimon, bring the mouthwash," Jason complains after a long bout of mock-gagging. "... and maybe a taser."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2010-12-05-awoo.htmlEarly morning, Monday, December 2, 2069
This hour of the day finds the 'salarymen' (and women) hustling from their cheap apartments (like Tracy's) to their work, most filing into filament-like elevator tubes. Some head around to the nearby Arcadia Tower access points where security waves them through to their aircars parked on the skywalk outside. Directly outside Tracy's apartment is the skybus terminal, but thanks to the video window, she doesn't have to look at the dilapidated skyline of the suburb and the nearby Old City.
Tracy is awakened by windchimes hanging from a coconut palm. She blinks sleepily to see waves crashing upon a beach, the sky a vivid orange - a virtual sunrise of course, her standard morning alarm program. The hour is early, but a pop-up reminds her that she needs to get ready for her first morning class in about thirty minutes. At least she has to go no further than her workstation to show up - but with finals next week, the teacher will probably be giving a general review.
Just a step away, the white dog is thrashing around in his sleep. Perhaps he's having a dream about chasing rabbits?
Tracy yawns and gets out bed, sliding her feet into red poly-silk slippers that match her Asian-style floral-print pajamas. She shuffles into the kitchen where the coffee maker is ready with her morning elixir, and uses the control wand to open a new window on the wall showing the North Bend News Channel.
Cadena abruptly wakes up with a yelp! "No! Run! They're coming! They...." He looks around from his toppled position, and rights himself, shaking himself out, panting heavily.
"Are you okay?" Tracy asks the dog. "Don't tell me you have nightmares all the time too?"
"Oh," Cadena says, and his tail droops, as do his ears. "My apologies, Tracy. I did not mean to disturb you. I am quite all right."
The dog doesn't look, however, as if he is "quite all right." He nervously glances about, and he rises, pacing about the apartment.
"I was already awake," the girl notes. "What would you like for breakfast?" she asks, and goes to the refrigerator to see what she picked up, dog-food wise. One whole shelf is full of little disposable plastic bowls with sealed tops. "Chicken and rice? Beef and Liver?"
"My apologies, Tracy!" He bolts toward the door. "I fear something real intruded upon my sleep - I am awake and yet someone is screaming!"
"What?" Tracy asks, closing the refrigerator. She heads to her bed, where she takes the taser from under a pillow and then follows the dog to the door. "Someone outside?"
"North entrance!" Cadena barks, as he leaps up at the door.
Tracy opens the door, and hopes Cadena isn't malfunctioning. But he's pretty insistent, so she gives him his lead.
There, far away but obvious since Cadena pointed out where they are, students and workers are fleeing from ... Werewolves and thugs? Could it be some kind of publicity stunt?
On closer examination, there seem to be eight or so of them - not good odds. There are two huge werewolves, one gray-furred, the other brown-furred; four men waving Uzis around, their faces wrapped in cloth, one white-bearded old man in robes, one green leather-garbed man toting a rifle, with a brown and black dog at his side. Some four civilians or so are fleeing ahead of them.
"Pull back," Tracy whispers. "We wait for them to get closer - no use charging into guns," she explains, her Krav Maga training taking over.
"There are people in danger!" Cadena protests. "I can't take on guns, but I can distract them! Call security! Bolt the door!"
Closing the door, Tracy throws the deadbolt (no fancy tech there!) turns on the door camera and presses the Emergency Call button on the intercom.
Gunfire. So far the thugs are just shooting up the lamps and trees, while the werewolves strike menacing poses and howl.
"This is a game!" yells the first thug as he advances toward the air shaft with his friends. "None of you are real! You're all fake!"
The civilians fly before them, unwilling to argue with anyone holding weapons.
The Tower intercom unit chimes pleasantly and then a female voice speaks. "I'm sorry, all lines are currently busy. Please state the nature of your emergency, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible."
Tracy gets a chill when she hears the thug's claim, and ignores the security voice. She presses on the intercom button for the door, and says, "Mike? Are you out there? If this is your 'Face Reality' protest, you've got no idea what's really happening!"
There is no response.
"Officer Mckenzie to Thompson, Chung, and Whitney," Andrew calls into his shoulder-mic, "Disturbance in the northern quadrant. Chung and Whitney, circle south and left heading up. Thompson and I will come from the right to trap the ... whatever they are. Non-lethal force, tasers only unless you hear otherwise from me; they may be firing blanks, scare tactics so to speak."
"AWWOOooooo!" The eerie howls of the werewolves bounces off of the glassy walls of the Tower interior.
Cadena paws fruitlessly at the door. "That's not what I meant!" he protests to Tracy, as he dashes away from it in search of his box of belongings. "There are real people out there who could be hurt! You should shut the door behind me. I can be replaced. They can't!"
"Those thugs out there aren't real," Tracy says, a bit in shock. "It's the Fracture all over again. They found a way to open a portal from The Gloaming into the real world..."
Officer Mckenzie activates his standard issue 'micro' bullhorn. "This is the police," he calls out, "Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air. This does not need to end violently. We are willing to listen to your demands ... and should any of you need medical help, we will contact the appropriate hospitals." That goes on mute, then his shoulder mic activates again, "Move up. Try to stay under cover. They may be mentally unbalanced."
"Run for your lives!" yells a disheveled-looking businessman as he charges toward the skywalk.
"Those thugs look real enough," Cadena says, as he tries to work his way into his protective dog vest (but cannot hope to connect all the clasps properly without some assistance from someone with opposable thumbs), "as do their guns. Whatever they believe about reality, we can't assume it's all some illusion."
Tracy sticks to the door, and asks, "What are you planning, Cadena? You look like an Avatar, so there's no way for the police to know you aren't with the monster squad - and if the thugs see you, it may only reinforce their belief that they're still in the Gloaming game. We have to figure out a way to convince them this is reality - do something that can't happen in the game world."
"If they believe this is the Gloaming," Cadena says, "then you know far better about it than I. What could possibly not happen there? For an 'NPC' to call them by their real names?"
"Fools! We are the Wild Hunt," yells the ranger. "Your pathetic laws mean nothing to us! You merely obstruct us from our true quarry!"
"I can think of one thing, but.." Tracy says, then goes to help strap Cadena's vest on.
The mage reaches his hands to the sky. "I call upon... FIRE!" Flames engulf his body from head to toes, but do nothing to him or his robes.
"Besides," Cadena says, "it shouldn't be possible for me to appear in the Gloaming. My appearance is trademarked."
"That is a point," Tracy admits, and then puffs out her cheeks before exhaling. "Okay, you can distract them.. but you can't go far from the door. I'm leaving it open. I want you to get their attention but drop back inside if they open fire. I think I have a way to stop them in their tracks."
As the thugs move forward, blasting the nearby tree to smithereens, one pauses and then holds up a comm to his ear. "Yes sir? All right!" He shouts to the others, "Pedestrians, ten points. Police, one hundred points! Let's rock them!"
Gunfire rakes through the air!
But fortunately, the civilians that were close to them have managed to duck around the corners... Just in time. Bullets strike sparks against the edges of the nearby apartments.
The ranger barks orders to the others. "Minions, to the right! Graymuzzle, go with them and show these police who the true power is. Yappy..." He pauses, apparently looking disdainful at the brown-furred werewolf. "Pyrrhus! With me."
The gunmen rush forward under his command, blasting wildly all the way. "Yeehah!" "Woo!" "Time to rock some cops!"
"Mercy! They're shooting at us! They're really shooting at us!" One woman ducks behind a bench, trying to take cover while sobbing.
"Lethal force authorized," Mckenzie announces into his mic. He draws his weapon and sets the ammo selector on standard rounds as he and Thompson take cover. "Incursion tactic 12-34, eliminate the leaders."
"All civilians to the nearest exit, now," one of the police, a female, calls into a bullhorn. Meanwhile the two police in the more northern position are waving at the nearby civilians to head to the exit behind them!
Tracy opens the door for Cadena. "Probably best to go around to the south and avoid the police," she advises. "I'll be following you."
A woman at the west wall - tall, leggy, dusky-skinned and black haired, wearing a black mirrored suit - begins addressing the floating camera drone near her. "This is Alexandra Regis from Face Reality, and I'm here to bring you yet another example of how virtual reality games have corrupted our minds," she says. "These people have become so addicted to the game they play that they are playing it - in real life, with real people at hazard!" The camera drone whirrs as it takes videos of the ongoing drama.
Cadena bolts through. "Police both ways! Taking shortest route unless ordered otherwise!" he barks out quickly, as he dashes out the door.
"This is prototype artificial biological entity AVA-808-X-024, on lease from Avatars LLC!" Cadena barks to the police officers as he dashes out the door. "Request permission to lend assistance to evacuating civilians!"
Tucking the taser into the back of her pajama pants, Tracy runs out after Cadena.
The poor police stare at Cadena for a few seconds. They then look at each other and shrug in unison. "If you can help, by all means. Stay low and out of the line of fire," one of the police tells the dog. "And I can't believe I'm talking to a dog," he mutters to his partner. "And we're shooting at werewolves," his partner helpfully points out. "Right, time to switch to decaf," they agree.
"You've got to be kidding me," Tracy mutters as her phone chime goes off just as she's stepping through the door. She doubles back, grabs the control wand and runs back out with it, heading for the police and Cadena. She hits the phone button and holds it to the side of her head. "Yes? I'm kinda busy right now!" she answers, not bothering to check for caller ID.
The ranger calls for his forces to move, splitting up. "Our quarry lies in this direction!" he proclaims - heading straight toward Cadena.
"What the hell have you done?" Jason barks through the receiver when his face appears on the vidscreen. "It's all over the news about some attack on your apartment building!"
The thugs open fire! Several civilians go down. Screams and panic echo through the Tower.
"I didn't do anything!" Tracy yells into the wand. "But I'm gonna try and stop it!"
Alexandra Regis says urgently to the camera drone, "Look! They've opened fire! Within moments this Tower is going to become a bloodbath - and all because they can't tell real life from virtual!"
"Is that gunfire?" Jason barks, "Don't be an idiot! Give me your building access code, I'm going to end this. Instead of getting shot find one of the building power conduits!"
"I don't know where any are!" Tracy replies. "Look, it's the hacker group - I can see Mike in his werewolf character! You know where they're connecting from, can't you break their links?"
"They're using red class hardware. Doing that might fry my brain. It's easier to hack into your building and turn on the damn sprinklers. Then it's just a matter of introducing them all to Mister Sparky," Jason growls into the phone.
The police open fire! The ranger stumbles back as the bullets impact against his leather-wrapped chest - but stands up again, the holes in the leather revealing the shiny plastic/ceramic bulletproof vest he's wearing behind it. "After them, my faithful hound!" he yells, ordering his dog to break forward.
"Are you nuts?" Tracy asks. "How could you target just them and not everyone else?"
"I can't! It'll just incapacitate everyone," Jason nearly yells, "That's better than being dead!"
"And what if it doesn't work on their bodies?" Tracy asks. "They aren't flesh and blood!"
"Targets are armored! AP rounds authorized!" Mckenzie orders his fellow officers. There's a flurry of changing rounds.
"Just do it and quit arguing with me!" Jason now actually yells.
The smell of freshly-shed blood reaching his still-confused, recently awakened mind, Cadena dashes forward with a burst of energy, desperate to reach the fallen, rushing past the police officers as he makes the long circuit around the atrium.
"KILL THE FROTZING POLICE!" roars the ranger. The gunsmen switch their aim, looking for the uniforms.
The werewolves let loose shattering roars! They swell up into monstrous-sized versions of themselves, even more menacing now. The woman trying to hide behind the bench squeals and sobs in complete breakdown, too terrified even to move when the gunmen move up beside her.
The gunmen spray fire toward the police officers they can make out. Slugs plaster themselves against Brian Thompson's bulletproof vest. A good day indeed to be wearing protection.
"Fire, hear my call," says the mage as he gathers an enormous ball of energy before him.
In the meantime, as the mage chants, the ranger levels his rifle - a Winchester, with gold curliques on the stock - and fires.
Bam!. Andrew his hit square in the center of his chest armor and falls backwards onto his butt where he was crouched near the sofa. His vest now sports a rather ugly lead 'rose' where there bullet flattened out. Wincing, he says into his mic, "I'm fine. Stay focused. Take out the leaders!"
"God-damned idiot children!" Jason yells somewhere on the other end of the receiver. "Kimon, dive initiate. We're finding that rift-generator and shutting it down," he yells at his stylized computer.
Desperate to interrupt that fireball attack, Tracy runs to the railing and shouts across the atrium, "HEY! WILD HUNT! THIS ISN'T VR AND I CAN PROVE IT! LOOK!" She knows she'll regret it, but she pulls open her pajama top and flashes them! "NO NUDITY FILTER!" she bellows.
The civilians continue to flood toward the skywalk and nearby entrance!
The ranger stares stupefied at Tracy. "I... you... What the?"
"It's a trick, you fool!" says the mage, whapping him upside the head.
"Yappy" aroooos! at Tracy gleefully, while Graymuzzle doesn't even notice.
The ranger reels back as two bullets impact against him. CRACK! Blood fountains from the vest where it was strained by a second bullet impact. He crumples to the ground, breathing heavily.
"Striking a blow for reality today, the police have downed one of the VR-crazed freaks!" Alexandra Regis cheers.
Cadena continues to run, casting worried looks at the fallen as he passes, but there is little he can do in scant seconds while others are still being shot. "This is artificial biological entity AVA-808-X-024, property of Avatars LLC! You are harming civilians, including one under my care! Cease your hostility immediately!" He reaches the couch near the cluster of enemies, with the werewolf on the other side, and the attack dog close, but with no clear path to reach the apparent leaders with tooth and claw.
The mage curses as his ranger friend falls. He redirects his attention to his sphere of energy. "You'll pay for Arcturus, fiends! You'll all FRY!"
Cadena, having just ruined all chance of surprise by announcing his presence (failing to impress anyone), leaps up onto the couch, and lunges toward the mage, dangerously within reach of both the hunter's dog and the werewolf.
The black and brown dog sprints up and lashes out at Cadena!
However, its bite is glancing, sliding off of the toughened harness that Cadena wears. Its fangs click together in the air and then it's on top of the bench, glaring after him.
The brown-furred werewolf grins ferally as Cadena charges forward desperately. "Oh hey, puppy wants to play!"
He swipes -- but though his ham-sized claws would have made a mess of Cadena if it had hit, his blow is off by a country mile!
The leap, although it clears the claws of werewolf and dog alike, is a bit too daring for Cadena to pull off. His fangs snap at empty air as he rather ineffectually bowls off of the mage - leaving himself now surrounded by enemies and vulnerable to the counterattack.
Turning, Tracy runs to the emergency fire-alarm on the nearest wall and yanks it down. "MIKE!" she shouts. "IF MY DOG GETS HURT I'LL HUNT DOWN YOUR LITTLE BROTHER AND BREAK HIS FINGERS!"
Immediately fire alarms go off! But not yet the sprinklers, as the building sensors try to determine whether a fire is actually in progress.
A female voice announces, "Do not panic. Emergency help is on the way. There may be a fire in the vicinity. Building personnel are en route to investigate. Do not panic..." It repeats.
Yappy peers at Tracy. "Oh hey! I remember you! Your in-game avie looks just like your real life one!" he yells, still distracted with Cadena.
"This isn't the game, Face Reality tricked you and they're going to kill you at the end of this!" Tracy yells back, and points across the way to the fake 'Reporter'. "It's a set up!"
The thugs continue to obey their fallen leader's orders: kill the police! They spread out, doing dramatic rolls on the ground to 'avoid fire'.
Their fire, fortunately, continues to be largely inaccurate. Brian curses as a bullet grazes his shoulder, but fortunately it only caught cloth.
"Ungh... It hurts," Arcturus moans from where he's lying on the ground, hand clutched to his chest.
"BY THE FIRES OF GEHENNAS!" yells the mage-- but his aim is off!
FOOM The fireball lands behind the police, smouldering, setting fire to the building decorations.
Now the fire sprinklers go off.
Both Mckenzie and Thompson take aim at the mage ... while the other two continue to move up!
The mage crumples backward against the ground, a streak of crimson flying into the air!
The black-and-brown dog growls at Cadena being so close to its master! Yappy, meanwhile, yells, "This is just a game! C'mon, join the fun! We're raising havoc!" at Tracy, waving hugely at her.
"It's NOT!" Tracy yells back. "Switch out of VR for a second and turn on the news!"
"And our police are two for two," enthuses Alexandra. She whispers to her camera drone, "Get a closeup of the dog on Pyrrhus!"
"By the Light, you fire-flinging fiend!" Cadena growls, as his claws extend out of his now-more-strangely-shaped paws. "To the Darkness with you!" And with that, he slashes madly with a flurry of fang and claw at the mage's exposed face and throat, in animal rage.
Yappy frowns at Tracy's words. "Um, all right..." He freezes in place, eyes distant.
The mage coughs, then gives up the struggle, his eyes rolled up.
"Error. Directive nine breached. Cannot take ordered from a bloated, self-important cow, the camera drone 'chirps' cheerfully. "Engaging directive ten, eliminate camera woman." And the camera does just that! It tries to beat on Alexandria!
Arcturus struggles back to consciousness. The hunter looks up. "Oh no! Rob-- Pyrrhus! Dark take you, filthy hound..." He grits his teeth, but is too out of it to attack. The same does not apply for his dog however, which lunges toward him!
The dog knocks Cadena off his feet, taking him by surprise, as the white dog was focused on the deadly mage!
The thugs settle into defensive positions and continue to rain fire on the police. One yells, "FRAGS APLENTY!"
Graymuzzle streaks toward the police toward the southern end of the circle! She roars malevolently.
Crack! "Gah!" yells Andrew as another round pounds square into his chest painfully, kicking him back on his butt again. "My entire chest is going to be black and blue after this," he mutters to wide-eyed Brian. "I am so requesting extra vacation this year."
Alexandra stares horrified at the camera-drone as it tries to bludgeon her - but before it can hit her, she manages to dodge! "They're trying to sabotage our broadcast!" she yells gamely, picking up her feet and sprinting toward the hallway. "They want to stop our message - but if you're out there, remember, VR doesn't just kill fake lives - it kills for real!"
The camera drone's red "On the Air" light goes dead. Alexandra's face changes, becomes feral and... Dangerous. "You'll pay for that, whomever you are," she hisses.
"Someone with more experience and power than you, Miss Cow," the drone cheerfully 'chirps'.
Feeling useless out in the open, Tracy runs back to her apartment. "If Mike doesn't pull the plug from his side, I'll have to try and find the synecdoche or whatever they set up from the inside," she tells herself, as she rushes to her workstation and VR helmet.
"Incoming beast!" Officer Chung says to her partner. "You know what we do with a beast, right? Shoot it" Her and her partner open fire!
The bullets land, but against Graymuzzle's enraged state, they seem to do little more than enrage her! "PUNY HUMANS!" she bellows.
"Where's Moonbeam now, Sasha?" the bot chirps. "Think she'll come save you?"
*** Delete Graymuzzle's line above
Graymuzzle reels back as a shot finds its mark! "Ungh... Puny humans! How dare you," she roars.
Andrew and Brian return fire against the thugs. Their police training pays off, as accurate fire sends both the nearby thugs to the ground. But wait-- that's not blood. Greasy black smoke roils from their bodies.
The gray-furred werewolf shakes her head, trying to recover from the shock.
"Drop her!" Chung yells to Whitney. They open fire once more on the wolf!
Alexandra yells into her wrist-comm as she sprints, "Abort operation! Repeat, abort!"
"Take out the other wolf!" Andrew orders Thompson ... and they open fire on Mike!
Another bullet impacts on Graymuzzle's fur, but there's no blood from this one. Must not have penetrated her thick fur.
"Come back, Sasha!" the cambot calls after Sasha as it pursues her as fast it can. "Lets do an interview all about you and what happened years ago!"
"Argh!" Graymuzzle grunts with pain.
In Tracy's apartment, Tracy is finding that the login process, normally fast, seems to be taking longer than ever. "Establishing connection," the screen reads. "Please stand by." And then the streets of Old London rez in around Treasa Truclaw. Just now seems to be a bad time for her to step out of a shadowy alley however, as everyone around her is panicking - something about a fire.
"Got to find the portal," is all that Treasa cares about, and closes her eyes to seek out the nearest ones, and with any luck, where it leads to.
Turning towards the fire, Treasa realizes that is where the portal is. "Of course," she mutters, and wraps her trenchcoat around her before running towards the conflagration!
Yappy suddenly comes back to life. "Oh man, what have I gotten myself into," he groans. "There's been some kind of screwup! Don't shoot anyone! They set us up! We're controlling robots or something!"
Arcturus, still groggy, looks around. "Are you insane? What are you talking about, Mi-- YARGH!"
"Put down that gun, you vile spawn of chaos!" Cadena snarls as he leaps upon the ranger!
Alexandra retorts, "Where Moonbeam is... You won't know until too late!" She hits an unseen switch - and fades from sight, the sneaksuit camouflage effect rippling from head to toe.
The white dog tackles the ranger, snapping and frothing and doing everything he can to impede the use of that rifle or who-knows-what other weapons for at least a few seconds more.
It's a literal dogpile on the hunter as his own dog lunges for Cadena, trying to protect its master!
The other dog bites and snaps at Cadena, but to no avail. Arcturus continues to flail, trying to break free of the dogpile.
Chung and Whitney don't let up on Greymuzzle! Nor do Mckenzie and Thompson on Mike. Bullets fly!
Yappy yelps as bullets sing through the air. "Ow! Hey!"
Graymuzzle reels before another onslaught of bullets! Mike, or 'Yappy', stares at the wound on his arm. "You... You shot me! It... Kind of hurts. A lot."
In Old London, the fires can now be seen over the nearby buildings as Treasa darts through the shadows. Someone's set fire to the old and decrepit houses in this quarter! Citizens yell to each other and pass buckets along, and a steam-powered water wagon rumbles by, staffed by two Royal Firefighters. There-- that must be the portal, just ahead and inside that thief's hidey-hole.
Dodging debris and bystanders, Treasa hurries into the chaos and dives through the portal!
Cadena snarls and snaps, slashing about. "Drop ... that ... gun ... or ... I'll ... tear ... your ... throat ... OUT!" In the flurry, he manages to knock the rifle out of Arcturus's hands, and, as a bonus, the sword as well - though for all the slashing and fury, he succeeds in no actual damage to the ranger.
*** Reorder this to come before Old London section
It looks like an abandoned apartment on the other side of the portal, a modern 21st century one. As she looks out the window, the thought comes to Tracy... What were the odds that she'd have logged in right next to the portal that Alexandra and her friends were using? Before her rise massive skyscrapers, similar to the Towers she knows so well but somehow more menacing, black steel and obidian mirrors, with a giant airship dreadnought in the distance. Somewhere out there, Face Reality must have a base of operation.
"The synecdoche may be near," Treasa mutters, as she heads for the door to the apartment to see just what's on the other side.
The remaining two terrorists slump, as do the hunter, dog, and werewolves, as if they were marionettes whose wires had been cut.
Beneath Cadena's paws, greasy black smoke suddenly erupts from Arcturus's flesh. It's as if his touch were burning him!
Cadena recoils at the sudden sense of deadness, and shakes the dog off of him, letting the claws slide off. Then, the scent of blood - real blood - reminds him that the aftermath is still real. He dashes toward the nearest fallen civilian, his first aid kit at the ready....
The police all look at each other when everyone slumps. "Definitely time to switch to decaf," they all agree. Though cautious, they move forward now to put the suspects in cuffs. "Better get a raise for this. I didn't join the ASPCA..." Andrew mutters as he heads towards the collapsed 'Yappy', cuffs out and ready.
The camera drone continues down the hallway... And comes up against a rather battered Duamutef's Donuts, the door shattered from the inside out. There's no longer any sign of the rift here.
The camera bot inspects the rubble, trying to find evidence of that rift. "You always were a coward, Sasha, the robot comments. Finding nothing, the bot pauses for the time being...
Meanwhile, in New Metropolis, Treasa finds herself in an anonymous apartment building.
First, she presses an ear to the door to listen for any activity on the other side.
Not hearing anything, Treasa carefully opens the door, wary of any creaks or squeaks, to get a better look at the area - and to find a better hiding place.
In the end, the police have no trouble subduing the miscreants - it's as if they were all suddenly lobotomized. Emergency medical vehicles are quick to the scene to help the injured civilians - and are surprised to find that the patients have already been stabilized.
Cadena finds Tracy and is able to let her know that the situation has been defused - for now.
In the Gloaming, Tracy stashes Treasa away in a closet and disconnects. "Are you hurt, Cadena?" she asks, while she quickly dials up Randall's direct number at CERT.. and also remembers to finish buttoning up her shirt.
Deciding to disconnect from the interface for the moment, Jason realizes he still hasn't had any coffee ... and now has a terrible headache. "Maybe I can move to Ireland and change my name," he mutters as he rubs his temples. "Idiot children."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2010-12-19-hacking.htmlAfter getting some actual coffee and a microwavable danish, Jason settles in to backtrack that trail before it gets cold. It leads to what appears to be one of the Face Reality internal servers - which would otherwise be perfectly anonymous on the net. The good news is that means it won't be as heavily secured against incoming traffic such as the thousands of rootnets combing for poorly secured installations to incorporate into their own - an evil that has yet to be eliminated despite the best effort of agencies like Randall's CERT. The bad news is that any incoming connection is much more obvious, so Jason obscures his connection through a relay, and makes his approach.
In cyberspace, this site appears at a distance to be a simple gray cube, but closer it's apparent that its surface is made up of thousands if not millions of tiny cubes shuttling around on invisible tracks, exposing what appear to be holes in its security, closing seconds later. Jason's seen this kind of setup before: it's a quantum probe. Each of those cubes can unleash an attack against a target computer: in parallel, a saturation attack that can break cryptographic defenses much more quickly.
While this makes the system tougher to attack, it's also much more vulnerable. It takes just a minute for Kimon's systems to analyze the movement of its two-layered defenses and then Jason threads the needle... He's in.
This appears to be the gateway computer for a small base. The internal system VR shapes itself around him into a moonlit meadow by a dark forest, a lake stretching before him, shapes moving in its surface. RIU hovers besides Jason as he explores, reading the underlying meaning behind the symbols. The trees are security systems it monitors; their fruits, video logs. The horses grazing contentedly seem to be unused cyberattack agents. The lake... Something moves within its bottomless depths. A vast, powerful entity, the nearness of which sends prickles up the back of Jason's neck. At the moment its attention is directed away, but if that changes, it would be a good idea to vacate this area. Could it be the agent that opens the rifts?
"/So ... ever have a desire to be a gardener, RIU? No, I don't suppose you have. I haven't either, which is why the garden is automated. Er, anyway, think we can plant a seed in their little Eden here? Something to alert us whenever they become active? I don't particularly like waiting around for the news media to report stuff,/" Jason asks RIU as he rubs his hands together thoughtfully. "/This isn't a simple job, we have to be careful in here..."
Balls of colored light float around slowly, some moving around to the trees where they absorb fruits, then disappear into the distance, archiving those security records.
"Lets see what we can get from those records too before they're archived..." Jason notes as he nudges RIU. "Time to do some log copying..."
The tiny Chinese dragon beeps! It eyes the lake dubiously. While it cannot speak, its gaze suggests that any 'seed' planted here will have to be carefully hidden, to avoid the gaze of the garden's master.
RIU darts through the trees, then settles on one. It noses at the fruit - a shiny candy-like red apple.
Jason glides over with RIU to take a closer look at the 'apple'. "/This has come interesting connotations,/" he admits as he leans in to watch the playback. "/The forbidden fruit. Knowledge."
Scene: a standard operations room, video monitors all over the walls, computer terminals, people in chairs jacked in staring into the distance. A large airlock-style door sits in the wall directly opposite the camera, painted with elaborate tribal-styled symbols around the sides. It reminds Jason of the Empire airlock he saw in the Avatars LLC basement, except these aren't Empire markings. To one side is a break room, distinguished by the refrigerator, counters with snacks, and microwave. To the other, a bathroom.
The airlock slides open, showing what looks like the inside of a typical Tower - it could be the very same Tower that Tracy lives in! And Sasha bursts in, a long-legged tanned woman in a sneaksuit that shimmers out from invisibility into a living obsidian mirror, her black hair flaring behind her. She slams the button on the side to close it again.
"Cut the line, abort the operation!" she yells. Her green eyes blaze as she glares at the people inside, looking for someone. "Find Mike, and bring him to me. John, Rob, Alice, jack out and don't try to leave, we have some serious debriefing to do!"
"Yes, he's in trouble. We could try to get him a message to run, but ... Great," Jason thinks as he rubs over his virtual face. "I tried to warn him. But, not really my problem, right?" The mental tone, though, hints that even with the claim it isn't his problem ... the guilt is there.
There's a large amount of bustling about, and then someone tries the bathroom door. "It's locked!"
Sasha frowns. She reaches inside the collar of her suit, brings out a tiny adaptive metal lockpick, but just as she inserts it... The door swings inward, drawing her off balance, and then a frightened looking Mike jabs a taser into her neck!
He launches a bottle into the room only a second later, having evidently prepared it with a mix of cleaning chemicals, filling it with a noxious green vapor, and then rushes through, punches the airlock door open, and steps through.
Alice, a tough-looking black woman, dashes for the door, one hand held to her nose and mouth, but it hisses shut in her face... And then a disturbing electrical crackle issues from the other side. "He's fried the lock!" She coughs.
John, a tough-looking bald-headed man, yells, "Base! Air flow, max! Clear this stuff out!" Robert goes to tend to Sasha, who is convulsing, but slowly recovers.
The fans whir at maximum strength, clearing the gases out slowly.
"Hah! Okay, I like Mike. Go kid!" Jason thinks as he now watches this play out intently. "If he actually makes it out, we'll have to find him..."
After some yelling and recrimination between her teammates, Alice sets to work on the airlock. She pops open a side panel and starts on the wiring... And then the power goes out. The camera keeps working on battery, but the lights in the room go dim and red, the previously omnipresent hum of machinery dies away to eerie silence. Alice curses, "Frotz! Another blackout!"
It takes another ten or twenty seconds, but the lights flicker back on. A yellow LED blinks over the circuits that Alice is hotwiring, and then goes to green. "Finally!" She punches the airlock button... Which opens onto a storage room, full of crates.
Sasha sits up groggily. "That... That colossal waste of oxygen," she says. "I gave him a chance, and this is how he repays me? He's dead."
Her gaze settles upon the airlock, and then she smiles grimly. "Oh, this will be fun."
The video log ends at that point.
RIU sniffs at the air warily, perched on the branch.
"And Moonlight goes hunting. RIU, send a message back to Kimon, have her search for power surges and blackouts being reported in any buildings up in the city. It may help us find where this is ... and where to go to try and save him," Jason instructs RIU. He quickly looks for any other nearby fruits that may be interesting.
Unlike normal fruit trees, this one has both flowers and fruits at the same time. As Jason's gaze passes over the flowers, he gets an impression of camera views around the base - an armory, a barrack, the parking lot outside the building - something's weird about this, it doesn't look like North Bend. For one thing, it's early morning here, but the sky outside is night, with streetlights illuminating the aircars.
Jason hmms. He reaches over and tilts the flower slightly to see if he can get the camera to move. Perhaps a building sign, name, address, anything, might come into view.
Kimon's voice acknowledges Jason's search query, another input to his neural implant. He can hear Kimon but others can't: no recent power blackouts in North Bend.
Manipulating the live feed gives Jason enough information to figure out where it's coming from. Palmdale, California.
"Figures. You're on your own, Mike, until I can figure out where you are. Sorry," Jason thinks rather grimly. He blinks when he gets the location. "Kimon, access Palmdale and look for blackouts," he instructs.
Kimon's voice responds, "Working. Eleven recent news report concern blackouts and brownouts due to unexpectedly high demand in power over the recent months. Most recent was dated approximately 15 minutes ago. Sunflower Power Co. indicates they are working to bring another solar power receptor grid online, and expect to have reduced or eliminated the problem by January 15th. Consumers have filed three class action suits on behalf of those who have suffered due to power outages."
"Isolate consumer that is causing the high demand," Jason instructs. "Great, someone is running a quantum core."
"Accessing. Data inconsistencies identified." Jason diverts his attention to inspecting the power consumption grid data directly. To any normal observer, it would seem like any one of several high power consumers were using more power - manufactories, waste reclamation plants, or megacorporate quantum cores. But all these consumers share feeds that also go to the same general area - a warehouse district on the edge of Palmdale. Tying that in with satellite imagery and the aircars in the parking lot gives him an address.
The audit trails for the data alterations seem odd to Jason. Seamless, no trail... He's seen this before - it's the kind of work an Artificial Deity can do. Which would match the vibe he's getting off of the entity in the lake.
"I smell your blood, Sasha," Jason thinks as an evil smile crawls across his lips. "Kimon, set up an anonymous relay link to the authorities in Palmdale, both local and federal. Time to send a little message: 'Building at the identified address reports a bomb threat called into them ten minutes ago by known fugitive Sasha Knightley. Suspicious package identified in storage airlock. Please help! We need to evacuate immediately and quarantine the building.'" Now, if this somehow manages to make it ... it just might buy Mike time.
The computer-kitsune acknowledges the request. "In progress."
Another flower catches Jason's attention. It's a feed of the operations room, and Sasha is giving orders.
Jason's eyes flick to the feed. "Okay, now what are you up to, Sasha?" he wonders.
"Hecate! Change our security codes immediately, and track it if he tries to use them! Alice, John, Rob, get back in and track that mutt down. When you find him, let me know and I'll deal with him... Personally." Sasha yells. She reaches down and strokes behind Moonlight's chin, a larger-than-life panther. Moonlight purrs throatily.
The entity in the lake stirs. The rippling water now becomes rapid trembling, and light gathers into its depths.
"/That your AI, Sasha? Hecate?" Jason wonders. He looks back to the lake, then to RIU. "/Our welcome is at an end. Time to go before we're spotted! She'll eventually figure out who raiend on her little party ... but I want a little more time. Time to dissociate!/"
A womanly figure begins to rise from the lake. Where moonlight strikes her form, she is liquid light; elsewhere, she is starry shadows, rippling like the water she is shaped from. Her gaze sweeps across the garden...
But by then, Jason is gone.
With an undignified squeak, Jason's chair goes upright as he returns to the 'waking world'. He grabs a piece of paper and a pen and starts scribbling down notes. "Randall needs this address. I need to locate air movement sensors for my suit, perhaps the old airfield junkyard. Some planes had them. Crap, I also need to warn Inari. Sasha is near where she is ... and if she's active, Inari may be a target," he mutters. "Of all the women I should have thrown out of the aircar or ship, it should have been that bitch, Sasha. I'm too soft-hearted," he complains. "Anyway, we need to contact Randall immediately. He has more authority than I do in these matters. And I hope that fake report works and buys Mike time. Idiot kid. I'm surrounded by them."
It's been barely moments since the terrorists shot up this part of the Arcadia Towers. Outside, emergency medical technicians are still seeing to the wounded civilians, their loud voices only faint whispers through the door. The ornately collared Cadena, wearing his kevlar combat harness (done up in blue with Avatars LLC's insignia in gold so it has the semblance of a dog uniform), stands at Tracy's side.
A police officer, an Andrew McKenzie, comes by the door to take Tracy's statement. "From your view, ma'am, what was the first you knew of this altercation?"
"My dog heard screaming," Tracy explains, hoping it doesn't sound crazy.
"The dog-- oh right! You did good work out there, but you really shouldn't endanger yourself like that," the police officer admonishes the white dog. He looks rather worse for wear himself, his bulletproof vest badly damaged - but it did its job, protecting him from worse injury.
Andrew encourages Tracy to go on. "After that, what did you do?"
"Uh, bolted the door, and called security," Tracy recalls. "The lines were busy. Cadena has guard dog training - and apparently emergency rescue too - so I helped him into his K-9 vest and let him out.. and followed a little ways to see that nothing happened. I brought my taser, just in case.."
"A good idea, though I would advise against direct confrontation with armed terrorists with just a taser, ma'am. It'd have been safer to stay locked in." Mr McKenzie's PDA shows a red recording light. "Do you have any reason to believe the terrorists might have been after you or someone else in this vicinity?"
Tracy had to really think about that. "No," she concludes. "They didn't try to get into any of the apartments, and just seemed intent on causing mayhem."
"Very well, then. So, what did you see after you let your dog out to, uh, render assistance as best as he could?" Andrew tries to keep a neutral face.
"Well.. they were a bunch of characters out of the Gloaming game," Tracy admits. "Two werewolves, a ranger with a rifle and a dog, a mage and four thugs with automatic machine pistols."
"A game with which you've had experience? They called themselves 'Wild Hunt'," asks the police officer. "I never play those games, myself, I'm into wargaming, so if you have any insights to share..."
"Yeah, that's the name of one of the factions in the game," Tracy explains. "They.. they just like to hunt other players, usually luring them out by attacking an important location in the game."
Mr. McKenzie nods, tapping a finger to his chin. "All right. So as I understand it, your dog immediately charged to engage them - I'll want to get your statement later," he says to Cadena. "But I'm more interested right now in what the young lady has to say about what she saw. What happened next?"
"They kept claiming that people weren't real, and acting like it was the game," Tracy notes. "I tried to distract them or shock them out of the delusion, but.. ah.. I wasn't very effective. The magic user managed to throw a fireball," she notes, and points to the blast area, "and I think was able to talk one of the werewolves into realizing what was going on, but I didn't see how it ended. I went back inside."
The police officer nods. "Very good, thank you, miss." He asks a few more probing questions, then suggests. "I'd advise that you avoid trying to distract anyone with a gun, young lady, the last thing you want is for them to reflexively shoot you - at least unless you're wearing a bulletproof vest, and even then, it hurts a lot." He grimaces, then turns to Cadena. "All right, let's take your statement. What're you named?"
Tracy fades back into the apartment, heading back to the workstation to see if the call to Randall had gone through or not. North Bend News is still playing in a video frame on the wall, but she's not too interested in it right now.
Wouldn't you know it, Randall's hold program is mariachi music accompanied by movies of Spanish dancers in flamboyant tuxedos (for the men) and acres of red and orange blouses and skirts (for the women). At least there's no sombrero being danced around.
The news program headlines, "The UNE has signed off on legislation authorizing the Zeus Weather Administration Program to begin operations worldwide." Inset in a video frame is one of the 'ion radiator pylons' that they are installing in thousands of locations around the world. These are apparently both sensors and ion emitters that can subtly guide airflow, butterfly-causing-storm style, or more aptly, preventing catastrophic storms and giving far advanced notice of inclement weather. "A board of 21 directors from various nations and industries have been appointed to plan out weather changes for the forthcoming year."
Tracy frowns at the hold message, and actually checks the time display. Maybe Randall is still in the shower or something?
"In local news," the announcer says, cutting to footage of a red-orange streak of light lifting from a dark slum area to impact on a giant four-engined transport helicopter. "An Eagle Security transport was shot down by a surface to air missile in the Dregs. It appears to have been launched by one of these Road Warriors, modified to carry rocket launchers. The transport was then robbed by one of the local gangs, Mav's Mavericks, who looted an estimated N$1,500,000 in armaments intended for delivery to its storefront in New York City. The gang members executed all but one of the survivors of their assault; the lone survivor managed to hide in a wheel well during their looting."
"Dregs," Tracy mutters, which makes her remember that Jason was awake! He called her after all, and seemed to know what was going on.. somehow. So she opens a new phone window and dials Reality Check.
"Accept call, but only if multi-level encryption is available," Jason remarks to his phone-system on his desk, "And make sure it is rerouted six times as well. We're under red-alert with what is going on, after all." The latter part causes him pause. "Time to check the desk lamp bulb, I guess. I wonder if I have any red ones left..."
The announcer continues as a second videophone session opens in a red-bordered window, "Avatars LLC and Arcadia Investments concluded their lawsuit today, as Ms. Penny Arcadia settled for an undisclosed amount of money and the handoff of all simulation data relevant to Arcadia Investments..." Jason's face appears before Tracy.
"Jason! Is that you or Kimon simulating you?" Tracy asks. "I think I found the staging area in The Gloaming. I found the Ranger's entry from Old London to New Metropolis.. I think. There where dog tracks.." she babbles.
The first videophone session blips from mariachi music to a shot of a Hispanic-descent man naked except for a towel around his waist, dripping water from his hair and mustache. "Hola, senorita! Que pasa?"
"Ack, Randall!" Tracy says. "Now I know how Jason felt.. Anyway, there's been a Fracture thing! Characters from The Gloaming game attacked my floor in the towers.."
"What?" Randall punches keys. "Madre de Dios! What happened?"
"Their base of operations is in Palmdale, where they are running a quantum core with an AI called Hecate is operating," Jason remarks as he rests his elbow on his desk and chin in his palm, somehow managing to look bored. "I have the address and I know who is behind it, and the names of the principle actors."
Randall tilts his head sideways. "Is that Jason I hear? Put us in conference mode!"
"Werewolves! And guy that could cast magic," Tracy says, conferencing the calls. "Palmdale? Did you hear that, Randall?"
"Randall? Have you been moonlighting as a sex-phone operator? I thought the pizza delivery guy was the common young woman fantasy," Jason remarks when he pops up on a joint-session ... and spots Randall in nothing but a towel.
Randall laughs. "No, I just got out of the shower, and I saw my computer ringing its head off. All right, I'm a little lost here. The last I'd heard, you were looking into some terrorist group named Face Reality. Now, suddenly, we are talking about werewolves and a mage attacking Arcadia Towers. What's the scoop?"
"That kid Mike was one of the werewolves," Tracy says. "I got him to disconnect to check and see that what was happening was real, but.. I don't know what happened after that. I logged into The Gloaming to try and track down where they had their portal."
Jason's image eyes Tracy for a moment. "Face Reality is a bigger problem than their pranks let on. One of their principle actors is an old 'friend', Randall. Sasha Knightley and her little pet, Moonbeam; I'm sure you remember them. She was acting as a reporter this morning when Tracy's tower was attacked. I identified her ... and isolated one of their servers. They're running a quantum core, Randall ... with an AI called Hecate. Theyr location is in Palmdale, Califorina. I'm sending the address now. That kid, Mike, is in serious danger. I've tried to complicate their attempts to locate him ... but I don't know if it worked or not."
"S-Sasha?" Tracy sputters. "She was here?"
"Filming you in all your glory," Jason deadpans.
"Sasha? Great Zork," Randall says. He receives the data, then starts pulling on a shirt, going off screen mercifully to change into underwer and pants. His voice comes from off camera, "Think it's just luck they hit the area where you live, Tracy?"
Tracy's face goes pale. "What do you mean.. filming?" she asks nervously. "I.." she starts to say, then gets derailed slightly by Randall. "Penny Arcadia just got all the simulation data related to Arcadia Investments from Avatars LLC this morning. That probably included the tower, so.. if she's really tied in with Face Reality, they could have used that to make a synecdoche right? Isn't that how it works?"
"Maybe, but more specifically... Your mother lives in those Towers too, doesn't she?" asks Randall's voice off camera. Sounds of zippers zipping, buttons buttoning.
"Yeah, but in a different spire," Tracy says. "This one is just little studios, mainly students at the NYU Virtual Extension school. Why would Sasha go after me?"
"I mean she had a camera-bot filming the whole mess as a 'news program' showing the dangers of virtual reality addiction," Jason says. "I over-rode it and shut down the feed, but it took some time. I also tried to distract her and get her to focus on me. That is ... if she figures out who it was. If there is to be a firefight, better down here. Less collateral damage."
"Feed?" Tracy asks, her voice going squeaky. "Feed to where? Who else saw it?"
"Likely a lot of people, but I couldn't give you specifies. I was more worried about people getting killed," Jason notes.
Randall comes back on screen, uniformed (but it shows he dressed in a rush). "I'm guessing here, but what if she wanted to use you as a hostage, Tracy? It's either that or her aim was off... But I don't feel comfy assuming that."
"What.. what happened to them?" Tracy asks. "Did they all go back through the portal?"
"Happened to who? The attackers? they disconnected and are now trying to find and kill Mike. Specifically people named: John, Alice, and Rob," Jason says and shrugs. "I could send you physical descriptions of each if you want, Randall."
The news program takes that moment to cover the 'breaking news' of a shootout in the Arcadia Towers. A camera bot pans around the scene, showing bullet holes, and a wounded civilian being helped onto a stretcher for medical evacuation. Smouldering black goo sizzles on the ground where the terrorists used to be. "Have we just witnessed a field test of some new threat?," the reporter theorizes. "Or is this what happens to people who 'do too much VR'? We now go to the website of Face Reality, which claims to have footage of the incident as it happened..."
Tracy turns slowly to watch the news report behind her.
Randall nods, scanning an invisible sidebar - presumably his work email. "That'd be a help. Though it looks like we're going to get into a jurisdiction fight with the FBI - still claiming they own anything that happens in the good ol' U S of A." He pauses. "Who's this Mike guy anyway?
There's Alexandra Regis, black-haired, long legged and tan in her mirrorsuit. Or rather, there's Sasha. More perfect in her beauty than ever, as if she's had some kind of cosmetic surgery. "...and I'm here to bring you yet another example of how virtual reality games have corrupted our minds," she says. "These people have become so addicted to the game they play that they are playing it - in real life, with real people at hazard!"
With Tracy apparently distracted, Jason addresses Randall. "I know you think I'm paranoid, but I believe this is going to get a lot uglier. We need to make sure everyone from the first incident is warned. Will you handle notifying Akiko, or should I? I'll try to notify Inari, but well, no promises on getting through her security." He pauses, then explains, "Mike is the hacker kid I told you about earlier, the one who answered that ad I sent you. He's disrupted their operations on that end when he realized what is going on. He even tazered Sasha, if you can believe it. He's now on the run in their complex. I tied to 'sub' in a bomb threat warning to the police and FBI in that area to give his pursuers other issues to deal with and buy him time ... but I have no idea if it worked."
Subconsciously, Tracy growls at the image on the screen.
Scenes of carnage, a shootout with the police. There's Cadena, dashing bravely through it all to attack their leader. And there, there's Tracy herself. "NO NUDITY FILTER!" Seconds later, network black censor bars appear over her chest. The camera bot swivels back to Yappy, who gleefully wolf-whistles. Alexandra comments sardonically, "It's Mardi Gras! This kind of thinking might work in a video game, but this is real life. Don't let VR cloud your thinking, sheeple!" Cut back to terrorists continuing to shoot away at the police.
"Why couldn't they blur out my face!" Tracy whines. "You don't think Sasha knows who I am, right?"
"I wouldn't count on that," Jason notes.
Randall frowns and taps away. "Looks like... Yes, they're moving units in. They're just now getting to the door, bomb teams are in place. You should give Akiko a call, Jason, I think I'd better get over there and make sure Tracy gets out of there safely. Better to play it safe."
"Sasha's on the opposite coast," Tracy says. "If they're using simulation data from Arcadia.. then we need to know what areas that covers."
Jason rubs his face. "Sasha knows one of us has unmasked her. We can all handle ourselves pretty well. I'm sorry if she goes after you, Randall ... but better us than the public. I'm going to be gearing up down here in case they assault my office next. I can probably hold out a while, but," he says. "Send me Akiko's number and I'll warn her. That is if she'll even talk to me."
The CERT officer taps a button and the view shrinks, then jags around wildly to a view of the (messy) apartment where he lives, as he transfers the call to his PDA. He hurries toward the door, then down the hall to the elevator. "Here, sending," he says as he runs.
"Got it. Be careful, Randall! You had better take Mara," Jason calls into the phone. "All of us needs to move to secure surroundings."
From the front door, the police officer seems to be winding up his interview with Cadena. "All right then, thank you very much," he says. He calls into the apartment, "If I have any further questions, I'll send you a note, miss!"
Randall nods. "You stay safe too!"
"Yes, thank you officer," Tracy calls back, before she disappears into her walk-in closet. She tosses out two duffel bags, and some essential, simple outfits. "Cadena, start packing your stuff back up!" she calls out. "We're moving!"
"So ... Filter Girl," Jason remarks, now apparently addressing Tracy while she packs. "You had better pick up this suit. I don't like the idea of it being out of my control ... but I like the idea of you lying in a pool of blood even less. I mean, you gave up the goth scene, right? So ... pools of blood are right out. Besides, if you die, you can't attempt the challenge and that would really annoy me."
Wearing a black jumpsuit and a straight black wig when she emerges, Tracy retrieves the taser from the workstation and puts into the holster stuck to the small of her back. "It was never about the blood, it was about the bleakness. I picked up some engineered filet mignon yesterday too, so if you let me hole up with you I'll make you that dinner you wanted. And you can keep an eye on me that way. Please don't make me stay locked up in Avatars HQ with my parents?"
"On one condition. Will you accept my challenge?" Jason asks. He hasn't even said what it is yet.
"Yes," Tracy says with a sigh. "You owe me a challenge anyway. Go ahead and tell me what it is - I really can't sink lower than I am right now."
"It's something you've shown to have a serious problem with ... and it is extremely simple," Jason remarks, his left eyebrow arching slightly. "Two words: Trust me," he says. On the screen he can be seen to lean forward and press something. The call ends.
"Sneaky," Tracy mutters, then goes about packing.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2010-12-22-cold-call.htmlOnce Jason disconnects, faced with the somehow threatening task of calling Akiko - for the first time in four years, how has time fled? - he's fortified himself with a quick shower and a change to a clean buttoned shirt and jeans that actually don't have holes or wrinkles, and wiped a depilatory pad over his chin to remove the stubble. But there's no escaping the inevitable doom.
Now Kimon stands beside him silently, and a thinscreen displays the words, "Call in progress: Akiko Summers." Her hold program features a cute cartoon fox in a kimono bowing apologetically and serving cartoon people tea and cookies while they wait, against a background of a tea house. Shamisen music tinkles from an unseen source.
RIU sits up on Jason's shoulder. Beep?
"Her message doesn't help," Jason grumbles as he fidgets about in his office chair. "It would have to be cute and distracting. How am I supposed to even tell her she might be in danger? First call in years and it's ... hey, you might have a target on your forehead! And ... I'm talking to myself again."
ping! The hold program disappears to be replaced with the live image of... Oh wow, is that Akiko Summers? She's grown up! No longer young and schoolgirl-ish, she's now a sophisticated-looking Asian woman, carefully made up in a ladies' business suit. Behind her is the office setting of Arcadia Investments, complete with the logo in gold directly above her head. "Jason!" she says happily. "How are you?"
Jason jerks upright when the call finally goes through and nearly dislodges the poor dragon on his shoulder. "Hi!" he replies reflexively as he tries to regain some composure. "I can't complain. Well, actually I can complain. A lot. But then RIU bites me," he babbles as he tries to remember why he called. "Sorry it's been so long. Time just ... gets away," he admits as he shifts his position a bit uncomfortably. "You haven't seen the news yet today ... have you?"
"You're not here about the simulation data we were supposed to get from Avatars, are you?" Akiko says, looking cutely perplexed. "I mean, I haven't heard from you in the longest while, surely you didn't call me just for small talk?"
"No, no ... " Jason says. "Are you alone right now? I mean ... no one is listening in?" he asks.
Akiko leans forward, which shadows her neckline - she has a neckline! Somehow Jason hadn't noticed until now. "I've got my own office, right outside my boss's, but we're safe unless she wants something. So are you calling for a date?" She smiles.
Jason shifts uncomfortably again. "After that mess four years ago ... I knew you wanted to have a normal life. Normal is rare for me, so I thought ... well ... you would prefer some time to just get everything back together. Then, well ... time passes and there's always something in the way and ... okay, I'm babbling," he admits and holds up his hand to collect himself for a second. "I'm sorry I haven't called. I wanted to, but ... it's stupid and I'm stupid. I've been afraid to. Something happened today, though, that forced me to get over it. Try to remain calm ... but Sasha has reappeared. And to make matters worse, she's working for a group that is creating those world bridges again ... only this time into that new game, the Gloaming. I'm sorry to drag you back into this ... but I'm worried you might be a target. We all might be. There was an attack in the Towers earlier today that may have been targeted at Holly's child, Tracy."
Akiko listens, at first touched by Jason's speech, then with growing incredulity. "Sasha? I thought... I prayed we were rid of her for good!" She seems a bit teary, then shakes her head. "How much of this can I tell Penny? My boss?"
"Nothing. The group Face Reality is behind the current mess, but they have big backers. I haven't figured out who they are yet. Until then, the less that know, the better," Jason says as he rubs his face. "Too many unknowns still ... and I need to be sure you are safe. I know I haven't ... I mean. I don't know what I would do if you were hurt again. Is the building you live in now safe? Good security?"
Akiko says, "The best! Penny -- Ms. Arcadia -- hires Eagle Security, not knockoffs like Irongrip Security." She wrinkles her nose. "I'm not worried about myself. At least not while I'm at work..."
"I probably worry enough about you for two people," Jason admits. "Randall has gone to pick up Tracy and get her someplace safe. I've ... spent the day annoying Sasha remotely. If she pieces the clues together she'll figure out it was me. And well ... I'm far enough away from large populations any attacks would be low collateral damage at least."
Akiko tilts her head. "So wait, you're inviting attack? You finally call me after four years, after rejecting all those letters I sent you, you didn't even make your clone's incineration, and you call me now to tell me how much you worry about me and you want to get attacked to draw off fire?" She looks skyward. "Give me patience, Maker!"
"If any of us have to be in the line of fire, I would rather it be me than any of ... wait," Jason says. He blinks several times, then looks to RIU. "You sent me letters? When? I never got any letters from you. And what's this about my clone's incineration? I never heard anything about that, either. When did you send this? How did you send the information?" he asks Akiko when he looks back.
RIU looks at Jason blankly. Apparently it recalls no letters either.
"Kimon, records check please," Jason says to his mobile-computer. "How many personal letters have I received in the past four years?" he asks, "Were any about a clone or from Akiko?"
Akiko pulls up a screen. "Let's see... Um. Last one was about a year ago. They were done examining the body they'd recovered, you know, the copy of you that I saved..." She blushes. "But said that the HRA required them to incinerate the body. Prevent, you know, someone from stealing your identity. They asked if we wanted to watch, to, like, be sure that the clone was destroyed." Tears begin to well in her eyes again; she dabs at one with a handkerchief.
After a brief search, Jason nails it down. Someone's added a line to his spam filter that rejects Akiko's mail, and anything from the HIE - the Human Individuality Enforcement agency that was created to enforce the laws against human replication. They were the people who received the body of Jason Zero, or so Randall called it - him, whatever - back when, for 'further investigation'.
Akiko is happy, if surprised that Jason needs the emails, to fill in the blanks from what she's received. They diagnosed the replicant as an ordinary clone and disposed of the body two years ago. She still has a small vial with the ashes in her apartment in the Towers.
Jason sits back, his brow twisted in astonishment. "I never received any of this," he says, "Not one. I wasn't ignoring you, I never got it. I just assumed you were happy and had your life back in order. I didn't want to bring up bad memories and .. well, being afraid to call and ... " He has to stop there and rub his temples. "And who would have put a filter in to block you? I would have never done that. Christ. And how did they? I don't believe this."
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," Akiko says, looking as if she wants to be there to give Jason a hug. Or maybe to get a hug. "And really, I have gotten better about learning to be independent. All that time of being in that simulation... I did need some time to myself."
"You didn't upset me," Jason says, "This does. I would have replied. Someone has deliberately ..." That's when something comes to him. "You still have the ashes? May I have them? I want to be sure that they're of the clone. What if the person who set the block was the clone? It is my system. I can't fathom who else would have done it."
Akiko hesitates a moment. "All right, did you want them right now? I could add you to my apartment access. Or tonight, when I go home?"
"I can meet you there tonight. I would feel odd being in your apartment without you there," Jason admits. "And speaking of learning to be independent ... and you can tell me to drop it if you want ... can you still contact Inari? She will be a possible target too. And to make matters worse, I isolated one of Face Reality's headquarters to a city in Califorina ... which is close to her last I knew."
"Inari!" Akiko looks surprised. "Well, I mean, sure, I call her every now and then, but she's always got her entourage--" she pronounces each syllable, to give it ostentatiousness. "-- with her. And if not them, at least those cambots that're always floating around. I always feel pretty awkward talking, y'know, serious stuff in front of them. Being memorialized for posterity, even if it's minute #7550 in the daily log."
"I can't say that her little groupies make me feel much better. I don't like any sort of public attention," Jason admits, "I haven't spoken with her in four years either. Though, ah ... have you heard her new song?"
Akiko smiles. "Yes. I'm not much into that kind of music, I like Zen Techno more, but I do keep an Inari sub paid up." She leans forward. "So, you want me to warn Inari? What should I say?"
"Something vague that she'll understand. Maybe something like 'the hunter and her panther is searching for old prey'. Something song-liric-y to not attract too much attention but she would understand. Her recent song is a result of that, sort of. I make an anonymous posting to her fan site that seemed to get her attention," Jason admits.
"I'm honestly worried that since she is an artificial construct from what was VR, she will soon be a high target for Face Reality," Jason admits.
"You did!" Akiko grins. "I'm kind of jealous, maybe I should have become a famous musician myself so I could get fun anonymous posts from you."
"It did stir up the rumor mill on the site, I must admit," Jason says as he looks towards the ceiling. "May I ask ... do you miss her? You to were rather close ... then to be separated. And now to where your talks aren't even ... very close anymore. I can't really imagine how that might feel."
Akiko smiles wistfully. "Yeah... She was my Avatar back when. I used to hug her all the time, like a pet dog. We never could have one, apartment rules back when, where we lived. And then Blake happened, and it all became a twisted nightmare. Suddenly we were the bad guys. And sometimes it wasn't even we, just I and me." She shivers, looking lonely. "I miss her."
"Maybe you should go to her? I bet she misses you too. A lot of her behavior seems like ... I dunno. I've never been good with people, but it seems like she's trying to fill something that's missing by surrounding herself with a lot of fake things," Jason suggests, then shrugs. "I know I would miss RIU if he left ... even if he does sometimes wake me up by licking my ear."
RIU nips Jason's ear on cue.
"Maybe! It'd be just a bummer we can't talk about anything real in front of all those cameras," Akiko says. She smiles, looking somehow comforted by RIU and Jason's interplay. "All right, vague warning about a hunter and her panther, and see if she wants me to visit, and we have a date tonight, say, 7, after work?"
The word 'date' makes Jason twitch. "Right, tonight at 7. If I don't show up, assume something bad has happened and you may want to contact the police," he admits. He does actually manage a smile finally and says, "It has been good talking to you. Sorry it has been so long. Completely my fault."
"Not your fault! Mr. X," Akiko says, raising a finger. "Let's call whomever it is messing with your business Mr. X, until we know better. And you're going to track him down and give him a holy what-for, right?"
"Well, if I have to shoot him he might end up pretty hole-y," Jason agrees as he rubs his chin as if considering it. "Now ... be careful. Keep a good eye out for anything unusual right now. And ... if you need a safe house, don't hesitate to call me. I've got room ... even if it is a bit junky. I'll see you tonight."
Akiko smiles. "And Jason... It's so good to hear from you again!"
"You too," Jason says as he leans forward and presses the disconnect button. "Well, she didn't threaten to kill me," he confesses to RIU once the line is silent.
RIU beeps happily!
Beep! "You have an incoming call from Holly Trudeau," Kimon says.
"She also needs to not lean in so much, it was distracting," Jason remarks as he leans forward again to press the 'accept' key. "Sargent Pepper's Sausage Factory, Chief Kielbasa speaking," he deadpans.
"No time for that," Holly says as her image pops up. She looks quite frazzled. "Just give me a straight answer, Jason, did you have anything to do with crashing Blake Forester's Q-Core?"
"Excuse me?" Jason asks as he sits up right. "I don't know what you're talking about, outside of what happened four years ago. The only dealings with a Q-Core I've had remotely recently was identifying that Face Reality has one, and it's running an AD named Hecate."
"Someone crashed Blake Forester's Q-core and when it came back up, it was wiped," Holly states. "It had all the simulation data for North Bend, back from when Arcadia wanted us to model it before and after his arcology project. We were going to turn it over to Ms. Arcadia today... until that happened." The tiny Chinese woman leans forward, inspecting Jason.
"I knew nothing about that," Jason says rather flatly, "except that is the second reference I heard of it today. Akiko mentioned some simulation data they were expecting when I called her. I just got off the phone with her in fact. Call her and verify it if you don't believe me. Why are you suddenly blaming me for this?"
"Because, my daughter is going to go find a safe place, and I'm pretty sure based on where she's spent a lot of time lately that it's going to be at your place," Holly says. "And well, how many superhackers do I know who can break into a Q-core with no trace at all?"
"Another artificial deity. Palmdale, California. Name, Hecate, address to follow. Know operators, Sasha Knightley. It has already been doing data wipes to mask its massive power draws," Jason remarks, sounding rather annoyed that he's being accused of wiping an old system. "What reason would I have for wiping old simulation data?"
Holly sighs. "I have no idea! That data has been sitting for years now, we cleared the last of anyone we could track down out of it three years ago. And good grief, was that a project. All right, the security robots I have landing at your place in an hour won't be set to 'kill and ask questions later' then. Here's the authorization code for them. Just remember this is a loan, I want 'em back in good condition later, okay?"
"We're dealing with Sasha. I can make no promises," Jason notes as his fingers tap on the desk. "Holly, do you remember that copy of me Akiko rescued?"
"The My First Implant Operation Jason? Sure I do," Holly says, looking confused. She looks offscreen, types furiously, appearing to be monitoring three different things at once.
"Do you know he was supposedly incinerated?" Jason asks next. "Or that Akiko tried to contact me about it, but someone rigged it so that my mail blocked any messages from her or from the division that deals with cloning?"
"No! I didn't!" says Holly, her eyes widening.
"I'm going to pick up the ashes tonight. Something about this seems ... fishy. Especially since I was deliberately kept out of the loop," Jason says. "I don't think he was incinerated. He may also be in the middle of this mess, somehow, including the wipe of your simulation data. At least that is where my gut is leading me."
Holly looks troubled. "Jason, Randall's in trouble too." She winces. "Oh my God! They scored a hit! I've got a satellite feed, he's going down in the Dregs. Looks like that vehicle robbery gang."
"What?" Dammit," Jason blurts as his hands slam down on his desk. "Looks like the prototype is about to get its first field test. Get me the coordinates," he says as he gets up from his desk and kicks the access lever for his elevator and in-process armor. "Keep talking. Tell me what the satellite feed shows while I get ready to go get them."
Holly says tersely, switching to situation monitor mode, "Looks like they've got three Road Warriors. Each equipped with a missile launcher. Two fired first, kept him busy dodging them, then the third one launched last. Close airburst. Mara just fell from the sky. I think they're still alive..."
"They are still alive, don't ever think otherwise," Jason says as the floor splits and up comes his lift. He eyes his armor warily, given he has had only a few field tests of the tesla-based bolt system and muscular assists, not to mention the modified thrust-jet propulsion system, but now's hardly the time to hesitate. After lifting RIU off his shoulder, he tells him. "You'll need to cloak, but you're coming with me." And with that, he steps into the primer-gray painted boots and leans back into the harness. "System sync, neural control, access key already encoded," he tells the assembly. "Enclose and power up," he adds, then holds his breath. Hydraulics around him hiss as the assembly comes to life! Section by section the armor closes in around him and lock-bolts clamp down. The segmented metal then slides and settles down, skinning it in overlapping places of durable alloy. While this happens, Jason' can't help but feel like he's going into a coffin.
RIU chirps worriedly! He perches on the newly attached armor's shoulder.
The HUD kicks on when the helmet closes up. It's an odd mix of what looks like a streamlined bike helmet combined with a shirt 'muzzle' and slid-back pointed 'ears' (probably standard sensor inputs). So ... it have a vaguely 'kimon' shape to the helmet, but but stops short of appearing to be completely foxlike. "Any further updates?" he asks in a rather metallic-sounding voice due to the speaker system and distortion electronics. The harness releases and he steps out of it. Thankfully walking is relatively simple control so that he manages well enough when he goes to check on Holly.
Holly says distractedly, "It looks like they've loaded him on a vehicle. Now they're driving to... They must be trying to lose anyone tracking them by satellite, they're heading for a tunnel-- Jason, what in the world is that?"
"Probably my coffin," Jason remarks as he gets the final coordinates. "I've got to go after them before they get too far. If I can contact you later, I will. If it reaches seven and I haven't contacted you ... call Akiko and tell her what is going on. And ... apologize for me. Kimon, disconnect call once I leave the building." He goes to one of the wall-lockers now and grabs the duffel that has Tracy's stolen sneak-suit in it; she might need it after all. "RIU ... I hope you can hold on, this is going to be a bumpy ride."
"My God, what have you been doing," Holly muses. She shakes her head. "Understood, but you come back, you hear? My daughter needs someone to keep an eye on her if she won't let me take care of her."
"Like she listens to me, either," Jason quips, "Kimon, keep the place safe!" With that, Jason heads towards the back secret exit. "The jets should work. The physics models all checked out. Should respond to my neural controls..." he thinks.
"Affirmative," Kimon responds. RIU clings to Jason's armor snugly, little claws hooked into carry points.
Holly gives Jason the information on where the Road Warriors went into the tunnel system - a disused subway system.
Once out the back door, he checks the coordinates on the HUD Holly provided. "Right, must keep low to avoid too much attention, he thinks, "Should be other entrances ... will use one of those. Now ... lets see if I don't fly myself into a building!" With coordinates in hand, he tries to activate the complex flight system of control jets, thrust jets, and gyroscopes! "Up up and away? No ... too silly," he decides.
Power system... Check! Guidance system... Check! Thrusters... Warming up, and check! The suit lifts off slowly. Under normal power, it looks like it will be enough to move Jason at a running pace, at least if he wants to be fully manueverable. And there's the rub: while he's run simulations of that, wanting to be able to fight in the air as effectively as Randall and Mara (and the irony is bittersweet), he's never tested ballistic mode, which he'll need to engage if he wants to pick up enough speed to catch up with those vehicles.
"No time to be careful. If I don't go all out, they'll go six feet under," Jason thinks grimly. "Thruster increase in ten percent every ten seconds to ninety-percent capacity. Now!"
Flames light up under Jason's feet, first red then increasing up the scale. Orange, yellow, blue-white... He's keeping low to the ground, concentrating on avoiding incoming buildings and vehicles, and the limits of North Bend proper (or the Old City at any rate) are coming up at surprising speed. It's working! But it's a significant drain on the batteries.
"Go go! Have to catch up to them quickly!" Jason pushes it, frowning within its confines. "Tracy is certain to say something stupid soon and get herself killed."
Battery power drops. 90%... 80%... 70%... Jason estimates he'll be at 50% charge when he gets to the tunnel, and he has no idea where to go from there. Beneath him stretch the heaps and piles of trash that make up the Dregs, with red-black smoke billowing away from the smokestacks of the refinery where the junk gets reduced to its component elements in order to be remade. Ahead is just a tiny blob of grey concrete, the old train station.
"If they used a vehicle, there should be marks to follow in the dirt," Jason decides. "Might be able to find power lines to tap and recharge, too. Think. Why would they even bother shooting them down? Someone had to have hired them..."
The train station takes on form as he approaches. Everything looks eerily different through the helmet display, with lines marking interesting objects, and text appearing beneath them with an onboard analysis when he turns to look at something. A wireframe of the station constructs itself in the air as he studies it. Parking lot surrounding it. Stairs to access the upper level, that connected to an elevated tram to North Bend, long fallen into ruins. Big open loading zone for cargo vehicles to drive in and be unloaded. The Road Warrior vehicles should have driven into that, and with the tracks being unused, they could have just driven on the rail to wherever the trains used to run.
Jason cuts back the propulsion now as he approaches ... and lands within walking distance of the station. "Okay, RIU, be wary. Do you sense or see anyone?" he asks his dragon-companion as he starts towards the structure, hoping his primer-grey armor blends in fairly well and makes him harder to see.
RIU pops into invisibility, a shimmer-effect running down his scales from head to nosetip as he engages his active camouflage ability. He darts off to scout around the station.
Paydirt! Jason's vision gets doubled as he's now able to see what RIU does. Tracks! While the Road Warriors may have eluded overhead surveillance by going underground, they did nothing to hide the dust and ground-up debris that clings to their tires. RIU darts into the tunnel to track it, then pauses when it's getting to the edge of its range from Jason.
Jason nods, the synthetic muscles mimicing the movement. He now moves up to follow RIU. "Better sensors may be in order," he ponders as he heads for the tunnel to join the mini-dragon.
The trail leads past several junctions to an underground station, where they've pulled up. RIU perches invisibly - though Jason senses that RIU won't be able to keep that up much longer, and doesn't have enough power to zap them - and watches as they unload the trucks. This must be where they keep all the ill-gotten spoils of their raids, judging from the crates! Twelve armed men, and they look like they lean toward the Spazztic! side of armaments. They are unloading Mara, who looks to be unconscious. Randall isn't immediately visible but he could be in the station offices.
"Go ahead and decloak so you can recharge," Jason nudges his friend. He then starts looking over the crates, trying to determine if any happen to be explosives. "And ... think you can find Tracy and take her this duffel? Or ... is it too big for you?"
RIU sends a mental beep to Jason, being smart enough not to beep in proximity to the thugs. While Jason can't be sure, it sounds like RIU is reluctant to get too far away from Jason.
"S'ok," Jason thinks. He gets an idea and looks for a crate nearby that he could fit in ... and just spy for a bit until he gets a hint where Tracy and Randall are.
It's hard to be sure about explosives, given the metalloceramic crates aren't marked as such, but they do bear manufacturers' markings - Eagle Security, Spazztic!, Einhorn... The last being mostly construction machinery people, but they do manufacture large military-used security robots. Prising one of the crates open might attract some attention, but it should be easy to hide behind a stack of them. As long as the armor doesn't creak.
"Military-use robots, hmm?" Jason ponders, then smiles inside his suit. "Now if I can get behind one and if it has a control panel .. may be I can get a little help... Heheh."
"I can't believe I'm doing this. I am so shaving off Randall's mustache in revenge," Jason thinks as he keeps the armor suit low as she slowly moves it through the collection of crates. Soon he parks himself behind one of the crates containing construction, or military, robots.
Not a minute too soon. A short swarthy man - Mr. Desoto - steps out of the offices. "You! Carl and Eric! Go and sweep the tracks. They send people down to track down that flyboy soon." The two men he names grumble, but head for one of the aircars.
"Ah, it's mister slimeball himself," Jason thinks grimly from his hiding place. He poeers at the crate he's near, trying to see if there's a way inside so he could modify the robot within to be an ally. So, for now he's planning and looking .. and waiting to see if any clues about just what they're up to makes itself known.
Mr. Desoto eyes the wyvern being brought into one of the garages warily. "The pay had better be worth it," he mutters. "Hate dealing with live cargo. If the drugs do not keep this one under..." He brings out his PDA and studies it.
"Heh, he was hired to get Mara. Great. RIU, how is your power level?" Jason asks his dragon friend. It's now he decides to take a gamble ... and open the crate in front of him. Any allies would be welcome at this point.
Jason stops mid-reach for the crate. His attention switches to the implant ... and looking for a carrier signal he can use to hook into the PDA! "Lets see what you have ... and if I can cause some problems with fake alerts..." he thinks.
Bzzt... Static. And then there it is, the clear tone of a carrier. In VR, it looks much the same as any other PDA that Jason has ever broken, a plain sphere surrounded with totally standard cryptographic defenses that look like Tetris shapes. Of course just because they're standard doesn't mean they're trivial; they work against most standard intrusion.
"Time to bit-diddle!" Jason thinks as he wiggles virtual fingers. "It's just a matter of spatial recognition and proper shape rotation. Lets see..."
Rotate here, slide there... And hey, presto! The security layers fade away before Jason's eyes, opening it up like a walnut to expose the meat. Mr. Desoto's contact lists, recent calls log, his inventory of merchandise, a report from his prostate specialist... If more people knew how much Jason could get out of their PDAs any time he wanted, they'd be investing in heavily secured computers like his.
"Now, who hired you to get Mara ... and what are you looking at?" Jason wonders as he tries to bring up the current display.
"Size of a grapefruit? Desoto, that's one heck of a prostate," Jason boggles. "How do you pee?"
It takes a little digital sleuthing but it looks like Mr. Desoto received a call earlier this morning - before the attack! - asking Mav's Mavericks to keep station at a certain point and be ready to intercept a certain flier, then to bring them in, alive if possible, and hold them for later pickup in a day's time, in exchange for N$150,000 - a very large amount of money. They were to use concussive warheads to do this. The caller was anonymous, but the trail leads toward... Jason is not surprised: Irongrip Security.
"/Figures," Jason scowls, "/Bastards are really getting under my skin./" His mind flurries as he thinks. Simple distraction may be best here. News alert. The hacker tries to locate the PDA news feed system and inject a new headline: "Police tired of Dregs Gangs after a firefight just earlier. SWAT team in-route and National Guard called as backup to arrest the gang members." Hopefully that will get Desoto to dispatch more people to defend the tunnels ... and make dealing with those here that much simpler.
Mr. Desoto peers at his PDA. "Ah! Of course. I should let him know his merchandise is ready." A line of light burns in the sphere's core as he attempts to call someone... A certain Jason Edwards.
"He should get a message system since I'm not there," Jason thinks as he eyes the call. It's not like he can answer it right now!
A picture of Kimon, virtually speaking, appears on the PDA screen. "Jason Edwards isn't here right now, but if you leave your name and contact information he will return your call when he is back in the office," the faux-fox says in a cheerful, if mechanical-laced voice.
Mr. Desoto grumbles. "This is Desoto," he says. "We have the merchandise you requested. You'd better have the money for it. Meet in..." He gives the address for a warehouse not far from where Jason lives. "Tonight, at 1 AM."
"Message recorded," Kimon states, "Have a good day."
Jason hopes that Desoto soon spots the news alert ... but now it's time to get some backup. So ... he tries to carefully, and quietly, open the crate with the robot.
Mr. Desoto closes the call. He studies his PDA again, then calls Carl and Eric. "Finish up your sweeping, then get back here," he says.
If this were a standard military issue powered armor suit, Jason would be terribly out of luck - but luckily, he's built micromanipulators into it! A little fiddling with the electronic lock that holds the case shut and then he's able to open it up on its well-oiled hinges to reveal the gun-arm assembly unit for an Einhorn Crowd Protection Mecha. The entire thing is as big as Jason's body. It doesn't appear to be loaded however.
"Plenty of ammo down here and ... plenty of thumping strength," Jason decides as he tries to locate the control system (and peek to see if there is any ammo in the crate with the bot), "I just need you to go on a rampage and keep them all busy while I get Randall and Mara..."
"Crap," Jason realizes when he determines the crate isn't useful by itself. So ... he'll check the next one.
According to the manifest in Desoto's PDA, there's a wide range of weapons, ammo for said weapons, explosives, parts for robots... The problem is that armed robots aren't usually shipped ready-to-use; they're disassembled, to prevent unfortunate accidents should one become active in shipping, and reassembled at the other end by skilled technicians. If Jason can manage to avoid notice, which could be difficult, he might be able to rig up a variety of traps. Or an explosive distraction. But on the whole, this looks like it will be really hard for him to take on single-handed.
Jason has to think about this, then curse mentally. "This isn't going to work. But ... there is an alternate way. He wants to meet at 1AM? Fine. We'll meet, and I'll take you prisoner ... and we'll do a swap. Or I'll kill you, depending on my mood you ..." he thinks darkly. Randall is one of the closest friends he has and feeling this helpless brings out his darker tendencies. "Fine. Time to leave and take the battle to my turf. Lets go, RIU."
beep A text-only message appears on Jason's monitor. "Tracy is here in the workshop. She wishes to know if you need her to prepare or do something."
That at least makes Jason feel better; Tracy isn't here too. Randall is tough. Tracy is ... Tracy. "Have her call her mother and get the security bots ASAP. We need them for a rescue tonight. End message," Jason thinks.
The aircar with Carl and Eric returns. "Reporting in, Mr. Desoto," Carl says. "Swept the tracks pretty clean, up and down the way." Mr. Desoto nods. "Good work. Let's button down. Get these crates inside!"
There are a few tense moments when Jason puts an armored boot down wrong and they turn to see what that was... But luckily for Jason, it's always explainable as one of the other eleven men having picked up or dropped something just then! He gets far enough away that he can activate his flight system to scoot.
"Engage ... lets get out of here and get home! We have an assault to plan," Jason thinks as he engages his suit. "And sorry for endangering you, RIU. I just ... it's Randall, you know?"
RIU beeps consolingly at Jason, rubbing its head against the side of his helmet. And holding on, of course.
Being angry, though, does cause Jason to burn at full power again. Which also leads him to realize he has to add battery capacity ... and strength. The trip wasn't without some benefits, it helped him see where is weakness are. And ... that the people and their Avatar's are a target. It's only a matter of time before he's next on the list ... and Akiko and Inari. Dammit!
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2010-12-22-pickup-lines.htmlHas it been less than half an hour since Tracy's morning began with a shootout? Outside, the police are dismantling the 'Crime Scene' ticker tape and the medevac choppers are spinning up their rotors, taking the injured away. Maintenance people have arrived with float-platforms and supplies to repair the bullet holes. In not too much longer, it may look like nothing at all happened here.
An alarm popup appears on the video screen. "Class in five minutes!"
Cadena's collar beeps. A pleasant anonymous female voice says, "Thank you for holding. Mrs. Trudeau will take your call now." A few seconds later, a tiny Holly appears projected before the large gem of his collar; the scene behind her looks like one of the many labs of Avatars LLC. "Cadena! Tracy! Are you all right?" She peers worriedly. "I'm sorry to take so long, we just had a major security meeting and I couldn't get out of it. What happened?"
"Oh, hi Mom," Tracy says, kneeling down to be level with Cadena's pickup. "Err... Sasha opened a portal from Dantech's game world to my floor, and sent some monsters and ruffians through to cause trouble, claiming to be Face Reality. What was in the simulation data that Avatars released to Penny Arcadia, anyway? Did it include the Towers?"
"My apologies, Mrs. Trudeau," Cadena says, looking worried at Tracy's depiction of events (even if it seems true enough). "I'll forward you a copy of the statement that I gave to the police, including what data was accumulated by my deck, though I'm afraid it does not cover the entirety of the event. The important thing is that Tracy is fine."
"Sasha? Sasha KNIGHTLEY?" Holly appears about to erupt into Angry Protective Mom mode.
"
"Yeah, that's what Jason says anyway," Tracy points out. "Uh, I'm packing stuff right now. Randall's gonna pick us up and move us.. someplace safer."
"The episode was rather bewildering," Cadena says. "Rather exaggerated language is being used, including such claims as reality itself being split asunder somehow. There were a number of individuals dressed as characters who might be from the 'Gloaming' virtual online game, who were deliberately targeting civilians as well as security and police personnel. I ... was forced to take hostile action in the defense of bystanders."
The dog's eyes have a slightly glazed look as he talks about all this "exaggerated language."
Tracy reaches over to undo the clasps on Cadena's security vest, while the dog is within reach.
Miniature hologram Holly frowns. "In my line of business, Cadena, it's better to assume the worst. Tracy, hon, are you sure you don't want me to send a car down to pick you up? I think you'll be safer here than..." She eyes Tracy meaningfully "That abandoned warehouse of Jason's. If that's what you were thinking of!"
"He's got a Red system, Mom," Tracy notes. "I'll be able to finish my classes through that. And someone has to watch his back." She gets up and begins collecting the few personal effects she has to put into the first duffel bag with her clothes.
"I still cannot figure out how they managed to get those weapons in past security," Cadena says, looking confused. "It's not as if they evidenced any attempt at...." He pauses, then adds, "Mrs. Trudeau, there is something else I observed. After the attackers fell into a comatose state, it appeared as if a noxious black gaseous substance was being released at the point of physical contact between myself and one of the hostiles. When I withdrew, I believe the phenomenon stopped, but I cannot be sure, as my attention was immediately directed elsewhere."
"They dissolved once the link was broken," Tracy calls out, taking the second bag into the living room area to pack Cadena's equipment.
Holly looks frustrated at her daughter. "Honey! You do realize a Red system doesn't protect you against physical attacks, do you? He's all alone out there, with all sorts of --" She frowns at the news of the black goo. "That's bad."
"Wait ... dissolved?" Cadena does a double-take and looks to Tracy. "I ... I do believe either I misheard you, or I missed something important. What does that mean, exactly?"
"Mom, I'll be fine. He's got all sorts of defenses," Tracy claims. She gets out the insulated grocery bags, and starts filling them with Cadena's gourmet dog food entrees and even the vacuum-packed, engineered filet mignon she was going to practice cooking with.
"Cadena, those thugs were made of simulated matter," Tracy tells the dog. "They came through a portal from a simulated reality, and once the portal closed or whatever, there wasn't anything keeping them 'real' anymore."
Holly taps at an unseen keyboard before her. "I'd feel better if you had some more protection! Randall's a nice officer, but he's not going to be able to stay with you. Maybe I could, oh, lend Jason a few security robots?"
"He'd want to reprogram them you know," Tracy points out. "He doesn't trust stuff he hasn't personally voided the warranty on. But I'm sure he'd find them useful!"
The dog blinks as he mulls over the information. "Some sort of incredibly advanced nanotechnology? That's ... that's astounding. And quite frightening. Perhaps we should be tested to make sure we did not inhale any of the byproducts of decomposition. I sincerely doubt that the developers of such technology were overly concerned with safety, given the execution of it."
"I'll give Jason a call," Holly says. She blinks at something on a computer screen. "You did what, Tracy? Dear, dear, I thought I raised you better than that!"
"Cadena.. you didn't see all of the recordings from RIU yet," Tracy notes, petting the dog. "You'll understand more when you've seen what happened at the theme park site."
The dog's tail wags weakly, and then he trots over to try to help pack a few things, albeit at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to packing and talking at the same time.
Mini-Holly says, "Tracy Ellen Trudeau!"
The last things to go into the duffel bags are Tracy's own VR gear and chipware. She unplugs her Crystal Bracer computer from the workstation and wraps it around her forearm. "What, Mom?" Tracy asks, knowing that tone of voice.
Cadena helpfully closes up the bags with a clawtip, careful to keep quiet so as not to compete with Mrs. Trudeau, as she evidently has objections to ... something that might have happened recently.
"If I've told you once, I've told you a million times. Always Be Prepared For Things To Go Wrong," Holly says. "I know I was a little bit of a wild girl at your age, but if security has taught me anything, it's how to be practically paranoid. First of all, when you're in a gunfight and you don't have a gun - stay out of the line of fire! Second, never assume that they're playing with the same rules you are. If you made a bad call, you want to be able to cover your bet. And third, have an escape plan ready."
Cadena looks somewhat surprised.
"I'm trying to escape.." Tracy mutters. Then nods to the projection. "I was caught by surprise is all. I thought I could talk them out of it.. and it sort-of worked." She doesn't mention Jason's electrocution plan.
Mini-Holly leans forward. "You do realize you're going to be the meme girl of the next few days, don't you, honey?"
Tracy very nearly bursts into tears, but holds it back. "I didn't know it was all being streamed," she mutters. "Another reason I need to get out - I have three classmates on this floor."
Holly air-hugs her daughter. "It'll be all right, dear. Take it in stride. You'll impress them more if you roll with it. Show that Trudeau streak of unpredictability!"
After wiping her nose on her non-computer-clad jumpsuit sleeve, Tracy asks, "You aren't gonna let Dad see that part, are you?"
"He's seen worse," Holly assures Tracy. "We both changed your diapers back when."
"Good grief, Mom," Tracy whimpers. "Don't say stuff like that in front of the dog.."
Cadena just looks casually away, toward the nearest ... wall. Yes, that wall looks very interesting.
"Even if it was a terrible plan, you can still pretend it worked, bought some valuable time for Cadena to get in among them and do some damage," Holly advises her daughter. "But the important thing right now is to get to a safe place. You've got to think ahead. What if Randall doesn't make it before someone else pops up wanting to take a shot? What if Jason's warehouse gets bombed in the meantime? If this is all for real, then they could literally attack anywhere, without warning."
"And.. uh.. you don't have any security bots that transform into air bikes or similar, do you?" Tracy asks, figuring that her mom would have requested a feature like that if it was possible. "Just in case, for that escape route option?"
"Believe me, our scientists are working on it," Holly says with a smile. "But no, nothing like that right now. Just regular big hulkin' hunks of gun-laden doom."
Tracy looks at the video-wall, which is all that stands between her apartment and the open bus platform outside. "I've got my taser, and my wig. With my mirrorshades on, I don't think anyone would recognize me. And the video only caught Cadena in his armor, so without that he's less noticeable, right?"
"I for one have great respect for gun-laden doom," Cadena notes, "particularly when it's on my side. But as for notability ... I'm not sure that there's much we can do with our immediate resources to counteract automated pattern recognition."
"First of all, you're on foot, unless you've bought a car without telling me," Holly advises practically, but her eyes are a mother's filled with worry for her daughter. "Are you still getting around on the bus? That'll expose you to a lot of strangers."
"Randall won't be that long," Tracy says, chewing on her lower lip. "But.. until then maybe I can impose on a classmate. Adam is across the shaft. I could wait at his place and watch the monitor to see who comes to my door.."
"Are there any known limitations to this technology?" Cadena asks. "Of course, we have to worry about more conventional threats, but I am particularly concerned about the casual use of remotely-generated nanotech entities to do one's dirty work. It inspires one to act without fear of retribution. Perhaps there are some sort of technical constraints? Such as, for instance, being in areas without much interference? Would being 'off the grid,' so to speak, provide any defense?"
"We need to be someplace that doesn't have detailed simulation data, I think," Tracy says. "And Jason said the attackers' quantum-core might be down or disabled, so we shouldn't expect a portal attack anytime soon, unless they have a backup."
"It might be too much for us to hope that someone with such resources," Cadena notes, "does not have some sort of a backup." He looks anxiously toward the door monitor.
Holly frowns at the mention of 'simulation data'. "I am going to have to have a word with Jason," she says. Tracy senses a certain tone of 'talk between adults' in her voice.
"Hey, no telling him to cut me out of the loop!" Tracy demands. "Or making him feel like a babysitter." She picks up the filled duffel bags and heads for the door, also checking the monitor to see what's going on outside.
Holly sighs. "Honey, honey, it's not like that. Anyway, I'm giving Randall a ping, and I'm going to arrange for a little extra security, all right? You keep an eye out and stay out of trouble." She pauses. "And dear, don't stay at a classmate's place. They aren't ready to handle this kind of trouble. You aren't either, but you aren't going to believe me, no matter how much I tell you, are you, sweetheart?"
"Where you ready when it happened to you, mom?" Tracy asks, actually sounding a bit worried.
She looks skyward. "Oh, God. Is anyone ever ready for being sucked into a virtual reality and told you're going to die if you don't get out in thirty days?"
"That's why I did the unpredictable thing," Holly says with a grin. "It helped me cope a bit. If the universe was going to get all freaky on me, I was going to freak them back."
"Well, I'm not getting sucked into anything," Tracy claims, and gets her red cycle jacket, with the convenient armor inserts (including the hollow one with her lockpicking tools) and checks that she's got her G-Tool blade in her purse. "I saw your hair.. that was about as freaky as anyone can get. I don't know if I could do that, though," she tells her mom. "C'mon, Randall. It can't take you this long to get dressed."
Cadena frowns. "I suppose you might have heard it in the reports, but I recall that they made mention of some sort of primary target. I regret that I never found out just what that target was."
"Er, sorry," the dog says, shaking himself out of intently studying the monitor. "I was thinking about the hostiles, again."
"They did have a target?" Tracy asks, surprised. "If I'm right and Penny Arcadia is involved, you don't think she'd try to hurt me just because she lost her daughter, do you? I mean, you and dad couldn't have pissed her off that much, right?"
Randall's face appears on the vid screen. The blue sky and New York skyline are behind him, and the gray and dull brown of the Dregs are under him, girders sticking out of crumbling buildings. "I'm almost to your place, Tracy," he says. "ETA, ten minutes or so. You all set to go?"
Cadena looked as if he was mulling some sort of reply to Tracy, but seems relieved to be distracted by the monitor. "I believe we are as ready as we can be, officer."
The girl does a quick check of everything. "Yeah, I've got two bags and Cadena," she reports back.
"Should we meet you outside?" Tracy then asks Randall.
Randall says, "Yes, please! But don't blow your cover."
Holly's holo-image appears to want to jump out and shake Randall. "You treat my daughter right, you hear!" she yells toward the screen. "And you be careful too, you dirty old pirate!"
"Perhaps I should keep some modest distance from Tracy, then," Cadena notes. "I may draw unwanted attention. I'm afraid I have no clever disguise prepared."
"I wouldn't worry too much about that," Randall says. "They'll be looking for cute half-Asian girl, not white dogs. If they're after Tracy."
His console starts beeping. He looks down. "Great Zork! Missile lock!"
As if on cue, twin brightly yellow-orange flames appear in the junkyard landscape, streaking up to the sky.
"Missile lock?!" Cadena barks. "Wha - How ... ?!"
"Not again! They already shot down a transport this morning!" Tracy complains. "I hope Mara has flares or.. something!"
"Get to somewhere safe, and fast," Randall urges. He takes Mara down, swooping close to the missiles' angle of attack to try and break their locks.
"Where is 'safe'?!" Cadena barks, giving Tracy an alarmed look.
"Let's go," Tracy tells Cadena, putting on her mirrorshades to hide her eyes and picking up the duffel bags. "We're getting a cab," she says, and opens the door.
Holly starts typing furiously, trying to locate resources that'd be useful. "Oh, for my purse of spells..." she mutters.
The white dog sniffs the air, and darts out to check the outside surroundings for danger before it finds Tracy first.
Outside the apartment, everything looks normal. Wait-- there's a teenager coming down the hall from the right, purposefully approaching Tracy's door, judging by his gaze. He's crewcut and wearing a sleek-looking, way too expensive for him, jumpsuit and leather jacket adorned with silvery spikes around the sleeves and collar, and a gun is holstered on his hip - pretty blatant carrying for civilians in the safe, enclosed environment of the Towers. But that was always Mark Berkowitz's style.
"Oh... I'd prefer a werewolf," Tracy mutters and takes a step back into the apartment. She draws her taser, flips the mode switch to 'contact' and moves her hand so she's holding it between her jacket and the duffel hanging from her shoulder, just in case. "He's my ex-boyfriend, Cadena," she whispers.
The dog seems uncertain as to how to react in response, so he settles for scanning the area again, and being wary, but not threatening.
Holly's hologram looks up from her typing. She waves a hand and the image blips out - but she's still connected, so says the green light on Cadena's collar. Her voice whispers to Cadena, "I never liked this guy."
The dog, for his part, doesn't interpret this as "Chew on the interloper," and just stays wary and ready.
Cadena, assuming for the time being that there's little chance in hiding and observing from the shadows at this point, and uncertain how quickly footage of him talking is going to circulate, defaults to playing the part of a dog let out to walk, and trots casually about, sniffing at whatever looks sniffable.
Mark frowns, seeing the door opened but no signs of Tracy. He slows his approach. "Huh, did someone get to her first?" he mutters to himself, moving forward to try to see inside.
He eyes the dog warily as well. Cadena is news to him.
The big white dog wags his tail and opens his mouth, letting his tongue loll, ears perking, acting the part of a VERY big dumb dog who wants to PLAY!
From her place smooshed behind the open door, Tracy listens and waits. "Did someone else get to me first? Is there a bounty on me or something?" she silently wonders.
"Wurf!" Cadena barks, tail wagging. He crouches down on his forepaws, then jumps a little. He pants and pants, tongue lolling, and trots up toward the interesting new person, snuffling intently, and showing no evidence of recognition of the concept of "personal space."
Mark puts a hand to his gun holster. "Hey! Down," he says, looking maybe a bit eager to claim 'self defense against rabid dog'. "Are you Tracy's new dog or something? They didn't say anything about that!" He peers in the apartment... Just in time for the video screen to fill up with smoke and an earthshattering KABOOM. The connection goes dead.
The big white dog rears up just a bit, snuffling and then slobbering at the strange man's gun hand, and then LEANS forward like one of those big dogs that still thinks it's just a puppy. SLURRRRRRRRRRP! Cadena was spending the last few minutes working up a lot of dog drool just for such a move as this, and he puts it to good use.
"ACK!" Mark tries desperately to fend Cadena off, then figures out that it's going to take both hands... And even then, he's still getting the worst of it. He's rather critically distracted at just this moment.
Tracy takes advantage of the distraction, slipping out from behind the door to point her taser at her ex. She flips it back to 'ranged' mode with an audible click, once she has the laser dot centered on the back of the boy's head..
The white dog continues to go "slobber slobber pant pant slobber slobber," and so forth.
Mark swears awfully - teenagers really shouldn't use that kind of language.
Cadena suddenly leaps back off of the teenager.
With Cadena clear, Tracy switch back to 'contact' mode and presses steps forward to zap Mark in the back of the head.
And with a crackle, Tracy's taser lands directly on the nape of Mark's neck. If he'd had much hair, there might have been a little danger, but close-shaven as it is, there's no resistance at all. He goes down, thwump
Taser holstered, Tracy grabs the boy's legs and tries to drag him back into the apartment.
Cadena does a quick look-around to see if anyone noticed (or if the boy had backup), then joins his co-conspirator in hiding the evidence.
Door shut, Mark Berkowitz is safely stowed. If this were Avatars, there would be glowy crystals in the air to collect. In the Gloaming, glows would surround whatever items of interest could be taken from a body. Looting Mark's body in real life however, comes with no such easy accompaniments. Asides from his expensive-looking trenchcoat with spikes, and his Spazztic! Hammergun, there's his PDA stored in an inside coat pocket, a shiny looking dagger - a dagger in this day and age? - and most worrisome of all, the Wild Hunt emblem on his jumpsuit beneath the coat.
Cadena, not realizing whether this symbol might already mean something to Tracy, points it out with a paw. "The others had this symbol," he notes. "I am going to take a wild guess and suppose that there's a very good chance he was not here merely to annoy you, or to try to take advantage of a stressful situation to get back into your good graces, but rather came with hostile intent."
Tracy pockets the pistol, PDA and dagger, and frowns when no vehicle keys show up. "He was already in the tower then, and probably controlling one of the attackers," she guesses to Cadena. She taps on her wrist computer, trying to get through to Jason. "If he was the Ranger, he might have recognized me. The Mage didn't pay much attention.."
The white dog only belatedly thinks to check the PDA to make sure it's not actively recording (and if it is, to do something about it).
The PDA is not recording actively, and appears to be voice-protected - standard security. Jason would probably have no trouble at all breaking it, but he never got around to that lesson.
Cadena notes, "This might provide us with access to some useful information ... but depending upon its features - and I am not at all up on the differences between the lines - it might have features that would allow its location to be tracked while active. I would recommend making sure that it is shut down cold before transporting it, just to be safe."
"The way he talked, it sounded like he isn't the only one that's local," Tracy notes, and goes to the door monitor to trigger the 'intruder/burglar' call to security. "We still can't stay here, and I can't kill him," she tells Cadena, and thens check to see if the PDA has a removable battery or memory card.
Cadena nods, and goes to the door. "We'd best try again to vacate the premises. The next fellow might be less hesitant to shoot a 'big friendly dog.'"
All those lessons from Jason in identifying those maintenance panels in security systems have paid off. In no time at all, Tracy pops the panel, nailing just the right place to push down and slide, and removes both the flat battery pack and the data chip. Any interesting data will be on the chip, the rest is just hardware.
Cadena turns about in time to see the quickly-disassembled device (as if by magic!) and looks suitably impressed.
Pocketing the chip, Tracy tosses the rest of the PDA into the microwave. She isn't sure how to sabotage the pistol, so pulls out the magazine and puts that in the oven, then sticks the pistol back in Mark's holster. "Let's go, I don't want to be here when security arrives," she tells Cadena, and grabs the duffel bags again and checks the door monitor.
Mark twitches, but seems safely unconscious. It looks like the normal morning trickle of people outside, no one thraetening - should be clear going to the skywalk and the taxi pickup point.
"I can scout. You perhaps should go ahead and call for the taxi if you haven't already," Cadena offers.
Tracy steps out, leaving the door open a crack for the security team, and instead of heading directly to the skywalk, she goes for the nearest emergency stairwell. "We're going up to the next one, it's only a few floors," she tells Cadena, then nods to the suggestion of calling a cab. Instead of using the general cab-call signal though, she uses a specific number, given to her and Jason by a certain cabby named Manuel.
Cadena dashes along, trying to keep a bit ahead, as alert for trouble as he can manage.
"Que pasa, beautiful!" says Manuel from Tracy's PDA. "You want a ride?"
The stairwell echoes, eerily silent except for the sounds of their clattering up the steps.
"Most assuredly, my friend!" Tracy replies, and tells him which floor to pick them up on.
"I'll be there in a few minutes!" Manuel assures her.
Holly's voice says from Cadena's collar, interrupting the silence, "Oh my God. Have you seen that... that thing Jason is wearing?"
"No wonder he did't answer his phone," Tracy mutters, and asks, "Is he going after Randall and Mara? And I haven't seen it being worn! I hope he doesn't hurt himself."
Cadena's ears twitch, as he has just no idea what this thing might be, but nonetheless just focuses on making his way up the stairs and keeping alert for trouble.
"He is! The idiot," Holly says unhappily. "They picked up Mara and Randall and loaded them onto one of their trucks, then took off into the abandoned subway system. What's your escape plan?"
"I know a cabby," Tracy says. "I'm still heading to Reality Check. Do you know who shot down Mara? Was it the Mavericks?"
Holly says, "Fits their MO. Listen, don't go haring off after Jason, if he doesn't have it programmed to let you in, just hole up and wait for him to get back." She continues giving Tracy motherly advice, from the perspective of a VP of security. "You know, it's not too late to just come down to Avatars LLC, it's safe here!"
Cadena notes, panting, "That does sound like a very reasonable alternative, all things considered, as a short-term solution."
"That would be predictable though.. and didn't it get invaded through a portal before?" Tracy notes. "Send the security bots to Reality Check. Jason thinks IronGrip is involved, which means Avatars tower may not be all that safe. Also, Jason was going to try and contact Akiko and Inari in case they're in danger too! Can you check on Akiko?"
"We might consider one of Avatars LLC's affiliates," Cadena notes, panting. "They're a multinational corporation. They aren't confined to a single building. The important thing is to be out of easy public access long enough to gather our thoughts and consider options."
Holly notes, "Jason called Akiko already!" She looks frustrated. "Why did I have to have a daughter just like me?"
"Cadena, I want to get that armored sneaksuit," Tracy admits. "If Jason is hurt, he'll need someone to look after him when he gets back, and if he doesn't.. then we can head to a safehouse."
"As you wish," Cadena says, still dashing up the stairs with as much haste as is not unduly unsafe.
Tracy opens the door at the next level to have a skywalk, and lets Cadena get a good sniff and look about.
Different people are walking to and fro up here, but since it's a store district, most of the 'consumer luxuries' stores are closed, and just the supermarket and hair care store nearby are open. From here, it's a minute or so to get to the nearest skywalk checkpoint.
"I don't see anyone more dangerous than we are," Tracy notes. "How about you?" she asks the canine.
Cadena goes out first, scanning and sniffing. Finding nothing immediately threatening, he trots forward....
One of the ever-present large monitors presents an ongoing news program. "We now go live to the Avatars theme park in Southern California, where Believers of the Hidden World have staged a peaceful demonstration," says the blandly pleasant looking female newsie. A crowd of people holding signs appears before the park gates, some dressed up in medieval costumes. "VR is real!" a sign proclaims. Another: "They're hiding the truth!"
Cadena spares a glance, just in case it's a familiar-looking "newsie," but otherwise tries to keep his attention on the more immediate potential threats as he advances.
"If they only knew," the girl mutters as she tries to keep a casual pace towards the skywalk. "Mom, are you still there? Do you guys have a military transport or anything near the old Incursion site still?"
The skywalk door is coming up, and there looks like a familiar-seeming taxi aircar parked on the pad outside, through the smokey grey glass. Beyond the skywalk stretches the seemingly miles-below city of North Bend.
"Still here, honey," Holly says. "No, should we?"
"Just wishful thinking," Tracy says. "There's a kid named Mike, one of Sasha's stooges for the gunfight here. I convinced him of what was happening and he acted to shut stuff down, but now he's on the run in Palmdale. He hit Sasha with a taser. It would have been nice to be able to extract him if we got the chance." She waves to the taxi.
Holly shakes her head. "What have I told you about taking in strays, dear?"
"Uh, I don't think it ever came up?" Tracy asks. "Isn't that how you met dad?"
Cadena approaches the sky-taxi at a trot, tail wagging.
Holly sighs. She tappitytaps at her unseen keyboard.
Manuel waves from the taxi. "Hola, beautiful!" Door-seals pop, wing doors open upward to let her and Cadena in. "Going to meet your boyfriend?"
Tracy grins, and slides into the cab, after tossing in the duffel bags. "You could say that! A little weekend getaway," she replies.
Cadena circles, checking the surroundings for anything suspicious: clouds of black disintegrating unstable matter, flaring missiles, wizards with fireballs - that sort of thing. Finally, he leaps in after Tracy.
"Ahh, long weekend then!" Manuel winks, it being Monday. He closes the doors and lifts off.
Tracy watches out the back window to see if anyone is following.
"Lots of fireworks out over the Dregs this morning," she says conversationally.
The aircar glides down from the Tower in a long, practiced curve. "Oh, I heard about the robbery. Terrible, terrible thing," Manuel says. "Those gangsters, very dangerous people. You do not want to mess with them. I have heard, they drag people out of their houses, and shoot them, if they think they are poking their noses where they shouldn't! Of course, only people who live..." He gestures, one hand on the control yoke. "Out there, in the bad part of town. Where they live."
"You won't find me out there, that's for sure," Tracy claims. "I don't think I'd last very long."
"Your boyfriend, he lives not too far from the bad part of town," Manuel claims. "He should be careful."
"Oh, he's very careful," Tracy notes, looking ahead. She isn't sure how to act if there are other vehicles already at their destination.
The aircar glides over the retaining wall of the fortified suburb. They aren't thick like a castle wall, but more in line of a fence with guard towers (automated) stationed every hundred feet or so. The peaceful, well kept appearance of the city soon changes to run-down buildings, grime-smeared streets, and soon enough, outright abandoned warehouses. Ahead is Reality Check, with the usual collection of aircars that have never been moved in all the time that Tracy has been there.
The teenager pays special attention to the rooftops, looking for suspicious shadows.
Cadena presses his nose against the window, leaning over Tracy to get a better look.
The place looks normal enough! From above, Tracy can make out the garden with its plots of soil with automated sprinklers keeping the plants hydrated.
Tracy fishes fifty newbucks from her purse (she's got over a thousand with her, since she drew out the cash to cover the cost of the black-market sneaksuit should it show up). "Thanks for the prompt pick-up, Manuel," she says.
"Any time, senorita!" says Manuel cheerily.
Grabbing the duffels, Tracy opens the door as soon as the taxi sets down, so Cadena can hop out first.
The white dog does so, immediately circling and checking the vicinity for signs of potential trouble.
The taxi takes off, and they are left to make their approach quietly. The security system isn't obvious to casual onlookers, but Tracy can feel it scanning her and Cadena... Though physically it shouldn't be possible to feel such a thing.
At the door, Tracy takes off her glasses and presses the call button. "Kimon? It's Tracy and Cadena, can you please let us in?" she says.
The door clicks open silently.
The girl opens it the rest of the way and comes in, waiting for Cadena before closing it.
The dog sniffs around, uncertain just what sort of clientele are entertained here on a regular basis.
"Kimon, what's your security status?" Tracy asks aloud. "Have there been any cyber attacks since Jason took off?"
"Negative," says Kimon's voice from the air. "House is secure." Cadena's smell-analysis confirms this, though there is a definite new scent of... Motor oil?
Tracy heads for the conference room, where she drops the duffel with her clothes and such, carrying the second one with her into the kitchen. "Do you have emergency medical supplies?" she asks the security system next, as she starts unloading dog food and steak into the refrigerator.
"Affirmative," Kimon responds. "Locker C-14."
"How much EMT stuff do you know, Cadena?" Tracy asks as she moves on into the workshop, heading for the indicated locker.
"Only the basics," Cadena admits. "Did Jason give any instructions regarding answering phones? I hear one ringing, and apparently the automated system is not picking up."
"Where is it?" Tracy says, pausing in getting the medical gear as she listens.
Cadena shows the way, trotting after the noise.
The girl follows, looking concerned.
The ringing dies away. Kimon says cheerfully, if in a mechanical voice, "Jason Edwards isn't here right now, but if you leave your name and contact information he will return your call when he is back in the office." The caller ID on the monitor reads as 'Juan Desoto'.
"Must be one of his untraceable lines," Tracy mutters, and listens for the message, if any.
A swarthy-skinned, heavyset man appears on the video. "This is Desoto," he says. "We have the merchandise you requested. You'd better have the money for it. Meet in..." He gives the address for a warehouse not far from where Jason lives. "Tonight, at 1 AM."
"Message recorded," Kimon states, "Have a good day."
The connection closes with a click.
"That reminds me," Tracy says, turning back towards the lockers. After she gets the medical gear out and unpacked for quick use, she goes to the locker that has the sneaksuit in it. "I think I would like to have some extra armor," she tells Cadena. "How about you? Can you wear your vest comfortably to keep it on for awhile?"
The locker is empty. It looks as if it has been opened recently.
Tracy frowns and.. is actually shocked for a moment. "Mom? Are you still on the line?" she asks.
"My armor is made to fit me," Cadena says. "I am willing to put up with the resultant mild discomfort in the interests of greater safety."
Holly says, "Yes, dear?" invisibly.
"You were watching Jason, somehow, and saw his suit," Tracy notes. "Was it showing any signs of invisibility or cloaking?"
Mini-Holly flickers into shape, looking somehow more frazzled. "No, it looked like a gray fox-headed powered armor suit, honey." She takes a screen capture and forwards it. It's full of articulated metal parts and RIU is clinging to its shoulder... And there's a duffle bag slung across its back.
"Fox-headed?" Cadena asks. "I think I am seeing a trend."
"I get it," Tracy says, snapping her fingers. "He couldn't just carry Randall out.. so he brought the sneaksuit for him! But.. why the fox head helmet?"
"Yeah, a trend," the girl agrees with Cadena. "Kimon, are you getting telemetry from Jason's suit? Is he.. undamaged?"
Kimon says, "Yes." Monitors blink on, displaying what Jason's seeing - a metalic-ceramic shipping crate that contains the gun-arm assembly of an Einhorn Crowd Protection Mecha. As he looks around, the scene reveals itself: an abandoned subway underground station, with a lot of crates and explosives. Internal telemetry shows that Jason is alive and healthy, though his heartbeat rate is up.
"Do you wish to establish a communication link with Jason?" asks Kimon.
Tracy makes an involuntary squeak at the scene - all of those explosives! "Can he resist the temptation to blow it all up?" she mutters. "Kimon, can you send him a text-only message on his heads up letting him know that I'm here, and ask if he needs me to prepare or do anything?"
Cadena notes the explosives, and says, "I think the Einhorn motto is in order here. It would be best to 'tread lightly upon the Earth.'"
"Affirmative," Kimon responds.
Meanwhile, Tracy empties her pockets of the memory chip and the dagger, finally taking a moment to examine the knife under one of the many work lights.
Several men arrive in an aircar at the subway station. Mr. Desoto addresses them, ordering them to start moving the boxes into the storage areas. This could be bad for Jason...
Cadena ponders, "Isn't that the same fellow from the video call - an associate of Jason's? Or am I mistaken?"
"Oh that's just great," Tracy says, noticing the screen. "Yeah, he must be the guy Jason contacted about a replacement sneaksuit. Can you sniff this dagger and tell if anyone other than Mark and I have handled it?"
"That may be a tall order," Cadena admits, "but I'll try."
Jason sneaks out of the station slowly and carefully. Tracy has to wince at the loud footsteps and clatter every now and then, drawing their attention... But fortunately, it seems that all the bustle of moving has covered his missteps up enough that he can get away to safety.
The subway tunnel whooshes past Jason's vision as he activates his flight system to get out of Dodge.
Kimon speaks, "Jason wishes for you to call your mother and ensure the security robots are ready ASAP. He desires to use them for a rescue tonight."
"I'm afraid I don't detect any other interesting scents; I am fairly certain that its owner - Mark - handled it the most," Cadena says. "It does not seem to have seen any meaningful use. That is, I detect no hint of blood, and the blade looks almost pristine - no chips."
"Mom, did you hear that?" Tracy asks. "We need those bots as soon as possible."
Holly grumps. "Consider me called, but that transport isn't getting there any sooner than 45 minutes from now," she says. "And what does he mean, 'rescue'? Did someone appoint him the Lone Ranger of North Bend or something?"
"Has he even thought about the possibility that they'd kill Randall if things get violent?" Holly rants.
"Who's the 'Lone Ranger'?" Tracy asks. "Kimon, ETA on bots is 45 minutes, please relay that to Jason. Mom.. uh.. probably. Oh! Kimon, tell him Desoto called here to confirm a 1 AM meeting nearby, to purchase the 'item' they'd discussed earlier. So if we need to, we can call him back to distract him if necessary!"
Kimon nods. "Understood."
Holly looks skyward at Tracy's question. "I'm old. No one gets what I talk about anymore. So much for my class in early 20th century pop culture!"
"Nevermind history," Tracy says. "Do those bots have Avatars LLC logos on them?"
The monitors showing Jason's progress track him heading back toward the Old City.
"Of course, dear," Holly says. "I didn't have in mind Jason using them for some kind of cloak-and-dagger rescue operation. They're designed to defend our important buildings."
"Oh, well, would it be okay if I maybe replaced them with IronGrip Security logos?" Tracy asks, in her innocent-suggestion voice.
"IronGrip was behind the attack according to Desoto's PDA ... and he has a prostate the size of a grapefruit," crackles Jason's voice over the computer system. "Anyway, IronGrip hired them to capture Randall and Mara. So, the suggestion of using the logos is a decent one, actually. I fully intend to bring them hell on earth around 1 am. Making them think they're betrayed is a lovely idea."
Tracy smiles proudly. "And the self-destruct charges will take care of any evidence linking them back to Avatars!" she adds.
Holly rolls her eyes. "Mark would give you any number of reasons why falsifying corporate identifications is an offense that could result in prison time and severe fines. But do try to keep in mind, honey, I sent those robots over because I am very concerned about your safety. If you blow those robots up, it's not going to help that very much, is it?"
"I never get to blow anything up," Tracy mutters. "Okay, I guess we can make sure to retrieve the robots. Is Akiko someplace safe now, do you know?"
Cadena says, drily, "I am also concerned about the casual destruction of Avatars LLC property."
"She's under guard of Eagle Security," Jason notes, "So relatively safe I believe. I'll know more when I meet her tonight at seven."
"Meet her?" Tracy asks. "You got a date? I guess I'll save the filet mignon for after the rescue then.."
"It's not a date! Not really. I'm just collecting the remains of my clone's corpse," Jason claims over the com.
"What?!" Tracy asks, sounding shocked. "Why? I mean.. never mind! Not my business," she says. "I've got a memory chip from the PDA of one of Sasha's goons too for you to look at. Hurry home!"
"Long story. I don't think the remains are real. I suspect the clone is part of this mess," Jason complains, "And I am hurrying! You would have seen me earlier if you had been a good girl and been properly captured! Instead I spend the past couple hours in a panic, thanks. I swear. Kids."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-01-02-cadena-in-gloaming.htmlAs Cadena connects to the Gloaming account, the Dantech logo appears, a large red D with an inset T, then fades away to be replaced by the words 'The Gloaming' hovering in midair, Cadena himself hanging into space, the Sun blazing high overhead and the Moon at his feet. A book appears before him, the front cover embossed with the bronze insignia of the Sun, and then its pages open out and scatter, each becoming a window into a different world, an era of history.
But unexpectedly, an immense robed figure also hangs in the air near Cadena, its face a starry void in which two embers hang. "My champion, you enter into a place of great darkness," the WHITE says ominously.
Unlike his recurring dreams, here Cadena can move. He has arms! And legs! Examining himself, he sees an anthropomorphic dog standing on his own hindlegs. A robe of gray disguises his form, and slung across his back is a battered old staff... Yet one that hums with innate power. Or is it responding to power within himself?
Cadena, disoriented, looks this way and that, and then, driven by some sort of instinct, starts to move as if to genuflect before the figure, even as he realizes that there is no floor to stand upon. "I pray, my lord, accept my humble apologies. I am ... not where I expected to be."
The WHITE directs Cadena's attention to the pages before them. "Factions strive one against another, an endless quarreling for power. The struggle is its own reason for being, and one must lose for another to gain. How can anything great be built here?" It gazes into them. "Yet perhaps here you may find the answer to my question."
"If that is the quest laid before me," Cadena says solemnly, "then I shall do my best to find an answer." His mind flails, grasping. Who am I? Where am I? Who am I supposed to be? What are the rules? What is the objective?
The WHITE stretches its hand, limmed in nebula glow, to Cadena's body. Warmth floods over him, the feeling of being loved, of loving others. He is the protector of the helpless, the helper of the weak, the agent by which those fallen may rise once more into the Light. "Go forth," the WHITE whispers. "Be my agent in the darkness. And discover for me..."
And the WHITE fades away, leaving Cadena with a succession of pages from which to choose. One looks familiar - a view of New Metropolis's skyline.
The other pages play out vignettes as Cadena watches. A detective prowls through the night of an old-fashioned early 20th century city, glancing over his shoulder as shadowy figures follow him. In Old London, a carriage rattles through the street, pulled by clockwork horses. Gondolas glide through the water of Venysse, a vampire maiden glancing down at the moon's reflection.
"Please, my lord! Before you go--" Cadena cries out, but too late. He shakes his head, as he looks over the pages, and sees in them a far more likely introduction to a new user in a virtual reality game. Starting off the game with a character such as this, giving one a mission, before one even chose a faction ... somehow that didn't seem to be in keeping with all he'd heard of the Gloaming. Cadena looks over himself, confirming his own appearance. "It ... would seem as if I'm further along in the decision-making process than I realized," he muses to no one in particular, and then he focuses on the book, marking the spot with New Metropolis's skyline, but anxious to take note of these other vistas as well.
As Cadena's attention turns toward each page, they become larger and the other pages recede into the distance. Old London... Didn't Treasa Truclaw say something about having a home base there with the League? But she also said she'd be searching for this 'Potemkin'.
Cadena sighs. "Greetings and salutations." His mind swims. "Are there any spirits that hearken, who might provide assistance? I am but a humble traveler and new to these realms. I wish to seek out the tale of a more experienced adventurer, one who goes by the name of Treasa Truclaw."
A few seconds tick by, and then a glowing door opens in midair! Or rather, the door itself was invisible, but the light bursts through the opening, silhouetting the male figure. "Ah! Here you are, Awakened. You've wandered far afield."
Cadena squints his eyes at this. "My apologies, good sir, but there must be some sort of mistake. I have not had the chance to wander at all." He checks to make sure he's still floating, and that with the materialization of the door, a floor hasn't somehow manifested itself as well.
As the figure's feet leave the door, it shuts behind him, and a sourceless light gives him clarity. He is a fox of medium height, brown hair, a traveler's outfit that wouldn't look out of place in a Renfaire, and strapped over his back is a lute. He walks up to Cadena on an invisible floor, though Cadena continues to float. "I'm Renard," he says, winking as if to suggest of course Cadena had heard of him. "And it seems to me that you surely must have been sleep-walking far afield, to be in the Hall of Dreams."
Something in Cadena finds that name for his current location to be very believable indeed, but the rational part (weak as it is) still rails against the inherent wrongness of the whole setup. "Greetings. I am Brother Cadena," he says automatically, before even realizing he has given himself a potentially rather generic sort of name before consulting the random ... before.... He loses his train of thought. "I confess to being rather disoriented, so it is indeed possible I have wandered off. I am having some difficulty in ascertaining just where I am supposed to be in the first place. Did you perchance hear my query regards the person of Treasa Truclaw? I am here, after a fashion, at her request." He mulls over that, not quite certain if that was the proper way to word it.
Absently, Cadena reaches downward with his staff, attempting to prod at whatever floor might be beneath him, yet unseen. If indeed he's been "sleep-walking," it would seem that he needs a refresher on the "walking" part.
Nope! Still no floor. How is Renard doing that?
"Treasa Truclaw! Of course, of course, but do I know if she wants you to meet her?" Renard smiles slyly. "Maybe you can find her for yourself! As an Awakened, you have that power. You are no ordinary Dreamer, like the people that inhabit these worlds." He gestures toward Cadena's staff. "There, your stick. Why don't you give it a try? Let it point the way for you."
Brother Cadena examines the staff, and regards it for a moment, with a vague feeling that it's missing ... something ... but then he shakes that thought away, lest he get even further afield by dream-walking or whatever nonsense has led him this far. He concentrates on it, gesturing with it vaguely in the direction of the book, though heedful of any sensation that might seem to be pulling it elsewhere.
As he gestures toward the pages, a warmth inside him seems to grow brighter in the direction of New Metropolis.
Renard smiles craftily. "Very good, very good. But before you leave this place, I should warn you..."
Cadena's ears perk. He isn't about to rush off anywhere and cut off a warning in the process if he can help it.
"There will be many that claim your attention, Brother Cadena," Renard says. "Servants of the Sun, servants of the Moon, those who serve neither or both, at their whim or by their own rules. They will seek you out, and desire that you stand with them in the great wars. They are always warring, of course. Places of power, magical artifacts, love or honor, revenge or justice, this trifle, that triffle, they're all trifles, really." He leans forward and whispers into Cadena's ear. "Just remember, it's all in fun."
And with that, Renard sweeps a bow. "Will there be anything else, Awakened?"
Cadena nods solemnly. "Thank you," he says, "but I have not forgotten the quest I have already been given by my lord. I will do my best to return with the answer in good time, and not to be unduly distracted. I appreciate your time."
"So serious! You should learn to appreciate a good joke," Renard says. "Well then, ta ta!" He draws a rapier from an unseen scabbard - surely it wasn't there a moment ago - and traces a door's outline in empty space. Golden lines appear; sword sheathed, he presses it open and steps through.
"Answers," Brother Cadena whispers to himself, and then, in a moment of testing, tries to will or fling himself toward the direction of the disappearing door.
As the glowing aperture in space draws close, Cadena throws himself at it- and just barely lodges his staff in it, stopping it from closing all the way! On the other side of the door, he hears Renard turn around in startlement at the audible clack.
Cadena struggles to right himself and lever the door open if at all possible. "Please accept my humblest apologies," Brother Cadena says, with a grunt, "but it seems that everyone here has a habit of disappearing so quickly, right about when I think of another question!"
The door opens and Renard catches Brother Cadena to bring him through into... Well, it looks like an old Victorian mansion, Persian rugs on the floor, a deer's head on the varnished wood wall, a fireplace burning cozily. "Well, I suppose you didn't want to find this Treasa Truclaw person so badly then," Renard says with a grin and closes the door behind him. From this side it looks like an ordinary white door. "What did you want to ask?"
Brother Cadena pants as he tumbles to the floor, and his robes settle about himself. "My apologies. I do hope she will forgive me the delay, but these are the troubles that come about when one serves two masters." He rights himself, and pats himself off, looking about the room. "The question I needed to ask you was - how do I return to that place that I just left? You called it the Hall of Dreams? My lord, who was there just before you arrived, bid me to return there with an answer - and I can't very well accomplish such a quest, if I know not how to return." He glances about the room looking for a mirror ... or any sort of reflective surface, for that matter.
Renard tilts his head. "Well! Two masters, is it? That must be a very complicated life you lead," he says sympathetically. "It's all I can do to manage with one!" There are indeed mirrors, and Cadena can see both his and Renard's reflection... So evidently neither of them are vampires, unless that doesn't hold with the Gloaming's vampires. "As for the Hall of Dreams, wherever you wish to go, your staff will take you." He leans forward and shares this conspiratorily. "But the shortest distance between two places sometimes isn't a straight line, you know."
Cadena nods, looking faintly distraught as he examines his own reflection in the mirror, tracing out the visible "chains" visible through his facial fur. He trusts that he will likely find a similar pattern underneath the robes, but decides that can be tested some other time. "That's a relief to know," Cadena says, but then he taps on the mirror with a claw tip, still not quite registering what he sees. "There's ... something isn't right here. I don't know how to phrase my question. I am here, obviously ... but ... I cannot be here. This isn't possible."
"Oh dear. Are you sure you're Awake?" Renard says, the fox frowning. "Or are you still sleep-walking?"
"Though I've never heard of someone to sleep-talk before."
Cadena shakes his head, turning away from the mirror, and putting the staff back in its sling. He laughs faintly. "That," he says, putting his hands up to his face, "is a very good question." His hands recoil upon contact with his muzzle, though the way he glances at his hands, it's hard to tell whether the muzzle or the hands were what caused him alarm. "Just before you arrived.... I'll try to start from the beginning. There was a word - 'The Gloaming.' Perhaps I heard it or read it." He puts a hand to his forehead, and breathes slowly. "The next thing I knew, I was before that book, where you found me. And then there was one who came and gave me my quest. I ... was not asked anything about what faction I served or my name or ... or anything. And then I was left wondering what I should do, and I asked aloud for help, and you arrived. I simply assumed that you had come in response to my query. I have assumed a great many things, and that could be ... counterproductive, I fear."
Cadena's eyelid twitches here and there, as some of his statements come perilously close to breaking out of character ... whatever of all this is really "in character" or "out of character," for all he knows.
"Why, that's very simple," Renard says smiling toothily. "No one came to ask you which faction you wished to serve because you already belong to the White. And I..." His rapier appears in his hand as he advances upon Cadena. "I serve the Black."
Brother Cadena executes a penitent bow ... and then makes a mad dash for a larger door far from the white door he came from.
Reynard dashes after Cadena, yipping high foxish laughter... But Cadena proves quick enough to knock the door open and slam it in his face! He emerges into the streets of what looks like Victorian-era London.
It is night and a thick fog covers the hard dirt road so thickly it wouldn't be hard to lose his pursuer.
Cadena pulls the cowl as hard down over his face and muzzle as he can manage, and darts his way down the street, anxiously following whatever urgings the staff might have next, noting to himself that finding answers might be a lot safer if he's not alone while seeking them.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-01-02-preparations.htmlMonday, Dec 2, 2069 - 3 PM
The pallet of Eagle Security Sentry robots arrives as promised. Immediately Jason sets to work assembling them - and luckily for him, all the heavy machinery that he needed to build his powered armor suit turns out to be also useful for this sort of work, these are not designed to be assembled in your kitchen. As Cadena pads about the warehouse cleaning things up, and Tracy uses Jason's 3D-printer to make some stencils in the gauntlet-and-hammer logo of Irongrip Security, Jason and Kimon lock precision joint assemblies into place and perform systems checks.
His experience with powered armor has taught him a lot about robotics as well. These kinds of robots are consumer grade - they're not up to military specs. While he's at it, he replaces power conduits with heavier duty versions, and adds spiky armor around the joints and on the head and back of the neck. Not only will these make them much better at taking damage, they'll change their silhouette so they look more menacing at night.
A coat of paint will finish the job. With the assembly done, Jason turns them over to Tracy to paint, then starts in on what's left of the lunch she's made for them. There's nothing quite like the sight of a dog washing dishes, scouring pad held somehow in one paw to distract him from the cold thought that after he goes through the PDA memory chip Tracy recovered, he's going to have to get ready for his meeting with Akiko Summers.
Dinner? Date? What will he do if she invites him back to her place-- wait, he has to pick up the ashes of his putative former self in any case. And then, the rendezvous with Mr. Desoto, who promises that he can deliver a high-grade sneaksuit for the sum of a thousand NewDollars... And who happens to be behind the kidnapping of Randall Cranston and his ice wyvern, Mara, both in unknown condition, presumed at least injured.
Just then, Kimon chimes. "Jason, you have a video phone call from Adam Dexter in Los Angeles." Tracy is in a well-ventilated part of the warehouse nearby, coating the robots down in primer black.
"Who is Adam Dexter? Summarize, please, if possible: Age, height, race, and job," Jason remarks, looking up from a mess of little claw grips holding a chip steady while he affixes a modified reader to help in bypassing encryption.
Kimon says, "102,513 matches found. Caller ID crossreferenced to provide unique match. Age 17, height 5'4". Caucasian. Student."
"Encrypt link and and connect," Jason remarks as he sticks his micro-soldering gear back onto its mount.
Covered in an apron, filter mask and shower-cap, Tracy pauses in her paint-sprayer work to come and watch this. "Hey, isn't Mike's brother's name Adam?" she whispers to Jason after taking off the mask.
Adam Dexter turns out to be a young-looking teenager, thin and blond. It's bright daylight where he is, noon judging from the shadows, and behind him are the spires of the Avatars theme park rise. Happy parkgoers mill about, their sussurus muted by the video phone software. "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir. Um, this is 'Jason', right?"
The white dog's ears flick as he picks up fragments of what's going on elsewhere, and he spares a glance in the general direction of Tracy. For the time being, however, he sticks to his current, humble, but easily-defined task of washing dishes. Such a simple task is, to him, a welcome oasis in the midst of a sea of chaos that others more experienced than himself are currently navigating (or so he quietly assures himself).
"Jason is correct, sir is not. I'm not that old yet," Jason remarks, mildly amused. He was hoping that Mike would have been with him but also isn't terribly surprised he is not. That kid got himself into a world of trouble. Question is now can he keep his brother from doing the same. "What can I do for you?" he asks.
Adam grimaces. "I was asked to pass a message along from my brother. Frankly, I'm not sure I believe it myself, my brother has played a joke or two in his times, but I haven't been able to reach him on his phone to confirm it."
He taps a few times on his wrist PDA, and an inset video appears.
"Hey Adam, this is Mike! You won't believe this, but... I'm trapped in the Gloaming! I mean, I'm really here!" The video included in the 'in-game message' shows Mike just as Jason and Tracy and Cadena remember him from their meeting at the Lucky Seven Dragons, looking as if he's just escaped a firefight. Blood trickles from scratches on his cheek, and his clothes are singed. Behind him is one of the skyscrapers of New Metropolis, distinguishable from a typical New York skyscraper by the curlique brass running up the sides to terminate in gargoyles leering down at him. Anonymous passersby mill to and fro behind him, some with strange metal fins projecting from where their ears should be - Personae, human-like robots.
"The airlock thing was a portal!" Tracy whispers to Jason. "Maybe there's another one leading back to the tower. It could be how he got to California so fast after we met him."
There's a clink of dishes being set down, and then the blast of the kitchen hand-dryer (or paw-dryer in this case), and then Cadena pads in, as apparently the conversation has taken a weird enough turn that his curiosity just won't abide.
"It's possible. All those conspiracy sites about the event four years ago are ... well, some of them are accurate. He isn't playing a joke on you," Jason says in a strange fit of honesty. "The how and why would take a long time to explain and involves quantum physics so ... Anyway. This is actually good; it means he's safe for now. I warned him against taking the job he did but ... the track record of kids listening to me is low." The last sentence is punctuated by Tracy getting a hard look from him. "Now ... what I need you to do is erase that message, completely. Then after it is erased, over-write it a hundred times with garbage data. There's a program that does that; Mister McNasty's Data Destructor, or something like that. That will keep it from being recovered if your PDA is stolen. Once that is done ... live a normal life and try to forget everything. This is something you don't want to get involved in."
Mike continues, "You've got to get a message to Jason. I gave him their contact info, but if he goes to that address, he might wind up like me, or worse!" He looks worried as he reels off Jason's contact number, looking at his PDA, then gives the address of the Face Reality front in the Arcadia Tower. "They walked us through this airlock-lookin' thing into a base, so I figured we hadn't left North Bend, but when I escaped - it's a long story - I wound up here! Well. Not here here, but I was keen to lose anyone following me, so I kinda ran like a headless chicken. Especially when I saw these guys in funny outfits with all the guns looking my way..."
A greenish tinge comes over Mike's face. "Send me a message when you can, all right? I don't think those tacos I had down the street are agreeing with me." The message ends there.
The white dog does a double-take. "Isn't that ... ?"
*** Swap lines appropriately!
"And well ... that is useful. But ... it's unlikely the front stays in one place long," Jason adds as he taps on his system and records the address ... as well as the message. He doesn't inform the kid that eating the food in that world is likely not good for Mike on the atomic level. Best to not cause further worry.
Adam shakes his head. "If this is true... It's proof that we Believers are correct," he says somberly. "The world of Avatars... And the Gloaming too, if this is right. They're real places!"
"There must be a synecdoche in the tower.. I mean, another one," Tracy whispers. "I'll check it out in whatever analog they have set up in-game. If I can find Mike and get him there, maybe he can get back through it.."
"RIU, come here," Jason calls out to summon the little dragon. "It's very real, and very dangerous. I know this all too well. It may sound cool and a grand adventure, but trust me on this, it isn't."
Adam leans forward. "But, if it's a real place, and my brother is trapped there... How do I get him out? You sound like you know more than a little about this!"
RIU snakes up Jason's back and perches on his shoulder. "Whreep!"
"You don't. I'll handle this. I escaped from a similar trap before," Jason says and thumbs towards RIU. "Meet RIU, one of three Avatars that came through some years back. I'm a bit of an expert in this, you could say."
Cadena pads around, next to Tracy, but mindful to stay out of the focal range for the camera input and the main pickup for the audio.
RIU blinks large blue eyes at Adam's image, then winds around Jason's shoulders a few times. Whirr!
Adam studies RIU intently, then Jason, then grins. "Really, you don't tell a King's Explorer to go away and not mind a big mystery just waiting to be solved."
For her part, Tracy stays out of frame as well. "He plays both games, it sounds like," she notes to Jason. "That's an Avatars Guild."
Cadena closes his eyes and shakes his head, then looks pleadingly up to Tracy. "We need to tell him something he can do, or he will find something to do on his own," he whispers.
"Actually, I can and just did. If you want your brother to live, your best course of action is to lay low. There are dangerous people involved," Jason remarks. To Tracy, he adds, "I'm aware of the guild, I met of of them when I was trapped there." Jason then eyes Cadena and ponders. "Do you have any other siblings? Mother and father?" he asks Adam.
Adam nods. "I've got a sister, she's eight. She's with Mom and Dad, back in the Works in North Bend." He lifts a finger. "Before you tell me to go away again... I think I have a clue for you."
"They're going to be targets. You all are," Jason notes a bit grimly. "The woman behind part of this is ... psychotic. So if you must do something, you'll need to keep them safe." He then nods and prompts, "I'm listening."
Tracy leans in a bit closer for the clue.
"Ever since the Breakdown of 2065," Adam continues. "Some people saw things at the Avatars theme park while it was still under construction, that led them to believe they were seeing into a real world not our own. There were disappearances, attacks by monsters, appearances by actual Avatars in this world..." He nods toward RIU. "The King's Explorers have always been about exploring Avatars's uncharted depths, seeing where the edges of its reality lie. What we were finding is that it went a lot deeper than we ever thought possible. And one thing that struck us about all this winding up in the Avatars theme park was that, maybe, it was because it was so similar to the real thing."
Adam asys, "Then the Breakdown happened. Some of us set up camp in the Gloaming, and frankly, we were a little dissatisfied. It just didn't seem as real as Avatars somehow. The NPCs were a bit more mechanical, the realities just a bit more plastic and pixelly. But. They improved. And we had an idea."
Glancing down at Cadena, Tracy chews on her lower lip. She hadn't figured that part out for herself. It had to be explained to her. "They tried to create a link between the two, I bet," she whispers.
Jason laughs briefly at that. "You're actually rather close. The closer the similarity is between a place in both, the easier it is to open a bridge at that point. It's how I was trapped there some years back," he notes, "Now don't get any ideas on trying to find the bridge points. If you stay too long in the other world, you'll never be able to leave it. Anyway, sorry for the interrupt, please continue. What has happened in Gloaming?"
"That's pretty much what we thought too," Adam agrees. "But here's the thing. Maybe when you have enough people in a VR, when they believe in it enough, it becomes more like the real world. A world of its own. That's the only explanation we could come up with for why the Gloaming was getting better, in ways that we'd tested in Avatars before."
Cadena shudders, and keeps watching and listening, nose, eyes and ears darting back and forth between Jason and the representation of his caller.
"Well, it all involves quantum mechanics and probability. Brain activity does induce a low-level electric field. It is possible that mass belief might be somehow affecting it, but ... that won't be entirely the reason," Jason says and shrugs. "And be honest ... you're not going to let this go, are you? No matter what I say?"
"It's a quantum-computed world, so maybe the observer effect is more real there?" Tracy summarizes.
"Even if I weren't insanely curious, now that I've got a brother who's stuck in the VR somehow... And it might be my fault..." Adam spreads his hands. For a young teenager, he seems remarkably well spoken.
"Then I suppose I'd best tell you what you could do that would be useful ... and not dangerous. Okay, You and all of the Explorers ... keep an ear out and an eye out in both worlds. In this one watch the news; watch your neighborhoods; keep track of any and all brownouts and where they occur. Whenever a gate opens, there is a massive power draw. So a brownout may be a sign. If we can get enough data points we can triangulate the location of the gate, or gates," Jason suggests. "Also, how long will you be in LA?"
Adam says, distracted by Jason, "A couple days! We're having a peaceful demonstration, get the message out that VR is real. You know... Counter-example to those Face Reality jerks." He frowns. "Though learning that VR is really real takes on kind of a different meaning when you've got someone 'in the rabbit hole'."
"Face Reality is a huge group ... and not above killing. Just ... keep that in mind," Jason warns, "Now ... hm. Are you a fan of Inari and Fracture?"
"Who isn't?" Adam grins. "Though it seems awfully coincidental that she popped up a little bit after the Breakdown, isn't it?"
"Adam, what is your group's affiliation in the Gloaming, and where are you based?" Tracy leans into view to ask, trying to distract from that line of thought.
"Now that's just a conspiracy theory. Anyway, you're close to her now, I think. If she isn't on tour, anyway. If you find yourself in serious trouble; life-threatening trouble, try to get to her. Tell her Jason sent you and that you need help. She's ... an old friend of mine. She may be able to protect you," Jason says.
"Most of us are League, some are Wild Hunt or Shadows, but we generally think they're just in-game distractions, like picking sides on a dodgeball game," Adam responds to Tracy's question. "They're not what we're really all about, finding out how deep the rabbit hole goes."
Cadena sighs and shakes his head. "Naming one's band 'Fracture' immediately after such an event would imply a deliberate attempt to suggest causality for the sake of sensationalism," he whispers to no one in particular, "not normally indicative of some shrewd attempt to hide it from the eyes of those fond of conspiracies."
Adam boggles a bit. "Like, I'm going to walk up to Inari? Like I'm even going to be able to walk up to Inari?"
Cadena ear-perks at this, and then looks to Jason, as if he seems to think the kid has a point.
"If she knows you know me, you have a chance. At least in theory," Jason says and shrugs again. He taps his fingers on the desk for a second, then looks to Tracy. "I also think I have a job for both of you."
"Maybe CERT should be a first choice go-to in case of emergency," Tracy suggests.
"Our only contact there is ... in capacitated right now," Jason points out, "But if he wants to try there instead. He'll need to refer to Randall."
"Right, Officer Randall Cranberries," Tracy says, then smacks her forehead. "Cranston. Officer Randall Cranston. Say you have information on the Face Reality attack in North Bend."
Adam gives Tracy a funny look about 'Cranberries', then frowns as she mentions the Face Reality attack.
Adam says, "That kind of brings me to what I wanted to mention... We undertook a small experiment. We bought up some VR estate in New Metropolis, and we set about remodeling it - funny how easy it is to make money, when everyone thinks that the in-game currency is worthless. We rebuilt it into a replica of North Bend, called Potemkin." He looks wry. "After the stories of the Russian general who made fake villages to fool Empress Catherine, y'know? We figured it could act as a lightning rod for, y'know... Incidents."
Cadena reaches up and tugs on Tracy's hand gently with his mouth, and then does a little head-tilt and eye-roll gesturing toward the side.
"I'll want to see that!" Tracy says as she's being called away. "I'm Treasa Truclaw in game.. hold on, gotta walk the dog!" She lets Cadena lead her away off camera. "What?" she whispers.
"Adam, whatever you do, do not talk to a woman named Alexandra Regis. Not about your brother or anything else. Don't agree to meet her anywhere. Stay away from her. I have no idea if she'll contact you or not about your brother but ... consider that a warning," Jason adds.
Off as far as he thinks he can drag Tracy away without totally losing track of the conversation, Cadena whispers to her, "Please pardon my asking ... but how well do you and your friend Mr. Trenchcoat - er, Jason - know this fellow and his brother? I take it you must have known them at least in passing before our chance encounter atop the Chinese restaurant?"
Adam frowns. "Isn't she the Face Reality 'news reporter'? By which I mean to say, 'mouthpiece'?"
"Well, no, not at all really," Tracy admits to the canine. "But Mike pretty much managed to do some damage to the attack group, and didn't hurt anyone.."
"Yes. And she would also put you in a meat grinder in an instant," Jason answers. "Stay away from her. And please tell me she isn't at that demonstration."
"So you've worked with him, then?" Cadena asks in low tones. "Please pardon me if I'm interrupting an obviously important discussion ... but from what you have told me so far, it seems that we've just divulged the identities of a several contacts we might have to someone that we apparently know only because of a chance encounter by his brother who just happened to land atop a Chinese restaurant with an easily fixable engine problem right after my hand-off to you, just as he was about to go to a job involving a caper that we all appear to be wrapped up in somehow."
Adam shakes his head. "Not so far as I know." He looks worried. "Here's what I'm worried about. From what my brother describes, I think he was moved through Potemkin. If Face Reality is using our district as a base of operation... God help us, we never meant for it to be used for armed assault on real life!"
Tracy blinks at this. "You make it sound so unlikely," she notes to the dog. "I mean, if I hadn't come across that sneaksuit, I never would have gotten in touch with Jason, and thus never learned what really happened four years ago and been totally unprepared for that attack."
"Don't blame yourself. No one would have considered that making a copy would cause problems," Jason says, "And right now you can't afford to feel guilty. There is a lot to do and guilt is going to be a distraction. Just keep calm, keep low, and be wary."
Cadena frowns. "I get the distinct feeling that you would have been caught up in things, one way or another, eventually. My only point here is that, as I have been entrusted with the task of trying to lend you aid and protection, I think it appropriate to exercise a certain amount of caution."
Adam takes a breath, then looks around. No one about seems to catch his attention though. "Got it. Keeping calm. I don't know about low though... I'm supposed to be coordinating this lot of unruly troublemakers for the next couple days." He forces a grin.
"Caution.. you're right, Cadena," Tracy says. "So while I finish painting the robots, I want you to use your VR gear and create a character in The Gloaming. You can watch my back while we try to find Mike then!"
RIU chins on Jason's head, looking down at Adam's image on the video phone session.
The dog's eyelid twitches a bit, but he nods nonetheless. "Yes ... caution.... Ahem. Let me clarify. By caution, I mean ... have we given any information to this fellow that, if it were forced or tricked out of him, might bring harm to those we care about? That is all."
"My advice would be to not cause problems right now ... but I know you won't listen to me. I don't know what it is about people in their teens that causes them to think they're indestructible," Jason complains. "I'll have an agent try to find Mike and get this mess cleared up. Just ... keep track of the things I asked for and mail me the results weekly ... or if anything major comes up. Make sure to encrypt it."
"Caddy.. they're already after us, so I don't think it can get much worse," Tracy notes. "Horses, fires.. barn doors.. and so on. I can't remember the aphorism, but.. Anyway, we can't be hurt in VR, only Mike can. And if the enemy is using that mock-up setting to move around, we can maybe ambush them!"
"We are indestructible," Adam says with a grin. "So that was, send you notices about power draws in 'our neighborhoods'... What neighborhoods, or just anywhere?"
Cadena bows his head to Tracy and ducks a forepaw. "Your point is well taken," he whispers. "I will prepare the equipment, then. Thank you for your time."
"Anywhere in general. Your group is fairly large, yes? It could be operating in several locations; though there is one in California. And no, I'm not giving you the address," Jason says.
Adam raises an eyebrow. "All right... And if I run into Inari, just walking down the street, I'm supposed to tell her you sent me?"
Jason laughs and shakes his head. "No, only if you were in danger ... and my friend is right, going to CERT may be easier. So, start there," he says.
"All right! CERT, aren't they the group that looks into computer viruses, hackers, that sort of thing?" Adam looks a little confused. "I'd have thought this a little out of their league."
"Just trust me on this," Jason says. "They can at least help protect you."
Adam looks less confident than Jason on this, but nods. "Got it. What do you want me to pass on to Mike?"
"How are you going to contact him?" Jason asks.
"Yeah, he won't have an orb or other in-game communication access," Tracy points out. "If his PDA is working then there must still be an active portal nearby, right?"
"I was going to send a reply to his message," Adam says. "If that bounces for some reason... Well, I'll leave a low-level process AFK so it can ring me when he tries to message me again!"
"Okay, hm," Jason says, brow rolling in thought. "Anyway, I now have your contact information and I'm not sure there is more I can tell you other than: Don't be a hero. This will get sorted out as long as no one does something crazy."
Adam smiles. "Thanks, Jason. It helps to know that someone has a grip on things."
"Adam, what's Mike's PDA address if I want to try and contact him?" Tracy asks.
Adam taps on his PDA a few times, and a contact icon appears.
"Did you get that?" asks Adam.
Jason taps the icon. "Got it," he says.
"And what's your game callsign too, in case he's monitoring it?" Tracy asks next.
"All right, I'll let him know you're looking into it, and not to panic..." Adam scrunches up his face in a grimace. "Oh yeah. Good luck there, Mike. My bro's kinda easily freaked. Not, y'know, good for his line of work. If I'm online, you can reach me as Aldestre, Avatars or Gloaming."
"Got it, thanks!" Tracy says perkily.
Adam winks. "Treasa Truclaw, huh? Maybe I'll see you around!"
"Don't let Teresa flirt with you if you meet her in-game. I recommend cold water," Jason adds. "Lots of it."
"I guess he hasn't seen the video yet at least," Tracy mutters.
This causes Adam Dexter's eyebrows to shoot up.
A voice calls from off the pickup, "Hey, Aldestre! Group photo in front of the Temple! You coming?"
"Remember, calm and keep your head down," Jason repeats. "And good luck." He flicks the disconnect button.
Adam waves, and the video blips out.
RIU licks Jason's ear.
"I bet you let Akiko flirt with you," Tracy grumbles. "I have to paint on the stencils. Can you help Cadena hook up to the workstation and find out what's on that memory chip?"
"Tracy, while I'm out your job is to find Mike in your catskin," Jason remarks as he taps on his console. "So, yes, I can. I also have to get Kimon to make sure the link is multi-level secure so someone can't hack your bra ... agth!" He has to wipe at his be-licked ear!
"Oh.. are you gonna send a message to the General warning him about Sasha?" Tracy asks as she gets her painting mask back in place.
"And something you should know," Jason adds as he eyes Tracy. "Sasha's Avatar was a Panther. So, bear that in mind about your own skin. Don't let anyone confuse the two. The General? Uh, no."
"Maybe you should then," the girl suggests. "He's not officially an enemy yet, after all, and might appreciate it. And as for looking like Moonlight.. well, if the portal to their base is open, that could be handy for getting up close and personal with Sasha.."
Tail wagging slowly, Cadena unpacks the VR gear near the workstation. "Panther Avatars are no more unique than Cadenas, White or Black, if it's any consolation."
"I think he's helping Sasha," Jason remarks dryly.
"I watched the recordings," Tracy points out. "The last time they were both conscious together, she had tried to eviscerate him and nearly succeeded. I can't think of any reason he'd work with her. For all we know, everything he's been doing has been to prepare for this."
RIU flits up to a rack mount, which in the old days would have held twenty computers. Now it's being used for shelves on which a variety of spare parts and tools are stashed.
"Anyway, let me finish setting up for data extract on this chip, then I'll get station set up," Jason says.
Tracy nods and heads back to the robots, replacing the black paint can on the sprayer with silver for the Irongrip logos.
Cadena notices the faux Irongrip logos, then notes, "If you hope to strike up a friendly relationship with the General, then mightn't trying to impersonate his security forces be working at cross purposes to that goal?"
The PDA chip, easily broken - using his mother's maiden name for a password, spoken with his voiceprint, hardly qualifies as security - contains a large amount of unmemorable information about Mark Berkowitz's life, including the fact that he broke up with his last girlfriend only recently, but also identifies him as being a Gloaming player. The most interesting bit is a message addressed to all Wild Hunt players.
"Be prepared and unpredictable," Tracy says as she works. "That's what mom said."
"And given that it was his company that contracted to have Randall shot down ... I'm less inclined to believe he would be on our side," Jason adds as he goes through the memory card. "Hm, interesting. He taps the last message to bring it up."
"All the better to make him think we are on his side then," Tracy points out.
The white dog shakes his shaggy head in what might be the canine approximation of a shrug.
"I see you're specializing in insanity today," Jason remarks.
"Your plan is to fake your own death," Tracy points out.
"So I'm not suspected, yes," Jason counters. "I want it to look like I was just a pawn too. I'm secure here, but not military secure. And they have a street-sweeping robot."
"I'm just sayin'," Tracy notes as she sprays the stencil onto another robot. "Easier for an ally to find out dirt on you than for an enemy, so may as well at least pretend to be thinking of the General as a former ally. I guess I could ask my mom to do it though.."
"Be prepared, Hunters, for a new challenge has now been issued by Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, Lady of the Wild," the message reads, against the moon and arrows logo of the Wild Hunt. "Your hunt will take you into a place stranger than any you have ever seen, for it takes place in the waking world and not the world of our dreaming."
A hologram of Tracy Trudeau appears. "Here is your quarry, Tracy of the house Trudeau. Let the first to reach her pronounce the terms of the Wild Hunt, and that is that she must elude us for five days, until sundown on the Sixth of December. We shall use any means within our grasp to capture her, but she must be taken alive, for death is the unworthy tool of the unworthy hunter. Should she elude us, Artemis will grant her a single boon within the abilities of the Wild Hunt or any of its number, but should she be captured, for the victor in this hunt, he or she who successfully brings home the quarry, the sum of ten million gold shall be paid in coins of the realm, or one hundred thousand New Dollars."
The message goes on to give an anonymous contact point at which notice of Tracy's capture can be given.
"Oh look, you're popular! You know I could do a lot with one hundred grand," Jason remarks as he reclines his chair and looks amused.
Other data on the PDA suggests that Mark was bragging to his friends that he knew this girl and he'd totally have this one in the bag within the hour.
"Well, capture.. but no reason why," Tracy remarks. "I guess Artemis is Sasha, or else whoever is above Sasha. What can you do with the contact info?"
Cadena glances at the time/date readout on the VR console, verifying that it's Monday, December 2nd, 2069. (Moon phase: Waning Gibbous.)
"I don't play in Gloaming and I'm not a member of the Wild Hunt ... so probably not much," Jason points out. "Which is a pity, I could use the money."
"Oh, and can you get onto their mailing list to receive updates?" Tracy asks as well. "I mean, after they find out what happened to Mark, I'd like to know if they just think I'm more of a challenge or too hot to handle."
"Depends on how the list is managed," Jason notes. He sits back up and tries to decipher if there is a named list ... and what servers handle it. Might be able to set a clone-bug on it to forward copies to a private account.
"If Mark is in custody, maybe you could pretend to be him and try to claim the reward," Tracy suggests. "Take a picture of me tied up or something to use as proof."
With a little work, Jason has no trouble adding an anonymous contact of his own to Mark's feed. If he gets another Wild Hunt notice, Jason and Tracy should get a copy.
"Done. You are now a voyeur," Jason comments. He now checks when the message was sent, before or after the attack on the building.
"Although if the contact point is in the game, maybe Cadena could be the claimant," Tracy suggests, finally done with the painting, and gets out of the heavy smock and mask. She's still got her wig on, since she hasn't had a chance to clean up yet and her hair is probably a mess.
The timestamp indicates that it was sent at about the same time as the attack on the building.
"We can deal with trying to fake a capture later. Right now we have a real capture to deal with," Jason points out.
Tracy sits down at the workstation and helps get Cadena's gear connected. "I guess I'm supposed to find where Randall and Mara are being kept during your distraction - assuming they'll be brought along anyway. Do you know when Desoto was supposed to deliver stuff to Irongrip?"
"Tomorrow," Jason remarks, "I have the data from his PDA. We have one shot."
"So you don't know for sure if he'll have everything he's meant to deliver along with him, and not just the sneaksuit?" Tracy asks.
"No, I don't," Jason notes. "And it is unlikely they would bring them along. They'll be back in their base in the old rail system tunnels."
"Is there anything in the news about this?" Cadena asks. "I can't help but think that the abduction of a police officer, particularly when it involved the launching of a missile, would ... well ... attract some attention."
"Huh, yeah," Tracy says, and brings up the local news channel on the workstation. "Should see if Mark got picked up too, and if so.. is he being held because I disappeared."
"Of course," Cadena says, "if there isn't anything in the news about it, that could be just as informative, in its own way."
"You may want to consider using your sneaksuit to get Randall out while I keep them occupied," Jason says. He reaches under his desk and pulls out a suitcase. After a couple biometric verifications (thumbprint, retinal scan, and voice print), he opens the case. Inside is a standard-issue bullet proof vest, along with a police-issue model II handgun, complete with biometric lockout and several ammo clips. Jason draws it out and verifies the gun is still keyed to him.
"You'll have to show me the layout and access points," Tracy notes. "We need to see if they're still there before I go looking."
"That is the point of a recon sneaksuit," Jason remarks. "Kimon, download the map recordings from the suit data to Tracy's terminal, please."
The Face Reality 'coverage of VR addicts gone berserk' continues to be the top story of the hour. Eyewitnesses, shaking and sobbing, recount their reactions to what appeared to be terrorists accompanied by fantasy game characters. And look, there's Tracy being censored by the news' nudity filter again. The theory of the moment seems to be that very sophisticated animatronics were used, then self-destructed when the point had been made.
A face Jason had hoped not to see again appears on the screen. "And we go live now to Dantech's VP of Virtual Reality Worlds, Andrei Romanov! Mr. Romanov, do you have any comments on Face Reality's claims that VR addiction leads to violence and insanity?"
"Oh look, him," Jason grumbles. He does actually aim the unloaded weapon at the screen for a second. "Don't I wish," he mutters and returns the gun to the case and closes the lid.
"So is that the guy who had your head messed with?" Tracy asks.
"Curious," Cadena says. "The things I heard the terrorists shouting at the time of the attack would seem to put them ideologically in line with the message being delivered by this 'Face Reality' group purportedly showing these same terrorists to be an example of what's gone wrong."
"Observant," Jason remarks dryly to Tracy.
"Well, they did stage the whole thing, Cadena," Tracy notes.
"I suppose," Cadena says, "but couldn't they coach their participants a little better? I mean, it's akin to sending in a bunch of terrorists with guns, shooting up the place, while screaming, 'Guns are bad!' It certainly gets the message across, but it does call into question just what in the world the messengers are thinking anyway."
"So.. what exactly happened with this guy?" the girl asks. "Were you working together? Did he hire you to hack Dantech? Just lure you in to a trap? And heavy-handed stuff goes over well with paranoid mothers, Cadena. Gives them an excuse to point and say, 'See? I was right all along!'"
Andrei shakes his head. "Modern psychiatric studies show conclusively that VR is no worse than reading, watching multimedia, or playing video games. In past years, people would have as easily blamed alcohol or cults for creating such psychopathic violence. It is wishful thinking at best, the working of a malicious agenda that seeks to deny others at worst, to suggest that people cannot control themselves when exposed to any kind of imaginative work." Jason recalls past debates with Andrei on this subject in school. Andrei was always something of a control freak.
"He's a control-freak jerk. The type that will alter records to make it substantiate his own opinions and agenda," Jason answers. "He never could see facts, even when they slugged him in the nose."
"Is he as good as you in skill though?" Tracy digs. "Could he have tampered with your mail system?"
"Him? Unlikely," Jason says. "I'll look into the mail issues later. I don't have time today to deal with it."
The white dog shakes his head. "I am going out on a limb with this, I realize, particularly since I don't quite understand the 'rules' to this quantum weirdness you've described, but I'm just entertaining the possibility that this group might not be as well organized as might be supposed. What if a group of like-minded individuals were told to run into what they thought was VR, in order to 'wake up' the people there and ruin the 'roleplay' mood ... when in reality they were shooting real people? What if they were tricked into this because they were not otherwise capable of participating in deliberate murder? Granted, in this day and age, I find it hard to believe it would take much effort to find people perfectly willing to kill for real, if they thought they would suffer no retribution.... I'm just wondering if there is any way to find out who these people were." He looks to Tracy. "Didn't you seem to know one of them? One of the 'werewolves'?"
The gun's thumbprint light goes green as Jason checks it. Working just fine.
"Basically he's all theoretical. How things should be than how they really are," Jason adds. "A man in quest of the perfect algorithm, which is impossible given all we have is imperfect hardware."
"The werewolf was Mike," Tracy explains. "Because he sent us a message from inside the game telling Jason they were planning some event, and even saying how they were constantly being reminded that it was 'only a game' - so yes, at least some of them were tricked into committing crimes they didn't know where real."
"Oh," Cadena says, ears tipping slightly. "Please pardon me. I didn't realize there was that connection. I am a little slow to catch up to all of this." He frowns. "That's ... that's another amazing coincidence, then."
Cadena trots over toward Jason. "I was wondering ... might I inquire a little into the nature of that problem you fixed with the sky-bike the other day?"
"Having them attack my 'neighborhood' and that Wild Hunt bounty coming at the same time isn't a coincidence," Tracy notes. "Having even more people showing up that were living out the game would have driven Face Reality's point home even more. Since in that case, it really is VR driving people to do extreme things in the real world."
"Failed injector system. A common problem for that model of bike. The parts used are cheap and don't last long to begin with. To buy a used one ... you're pretty much guaranteed that it will fail on you and soon," Jason explains to Cadena. "And expensive to fix correctly as the part costs a ridiculous amount given its mean time between failure rating. I jury-rigged him a new one using the air horn assembly since it already handles airflow. The trick is getting the cone exit the right size and shape to roughly mimic the original injector. It's not as efficient and won't pass an official inspection, but it works. It'll last longer than the original part, too."
Cadena nods. "It was not an unusual fault, then - nothing that should cause undue suspicion. However," he adds, "considering the inter-working of electronics and mechanical features in today's vehicles, is it at least theoretically possible that someone could have perhaps compromised the on-board system of his vehicle and overloaded one of the systems in some way to force the part to fail at that particular time, while it was going along that particular path - likely suggested by the sky-bike's on-board nav system?"
"In other news," the reporter continues. "Mav's Mavericks continue with their vehicular assault spree, with a rocket attack on a CERT airbike in the eastern Greater North Bend area. Local police are on the scene but so far there is no evidence of survivors. It is feared that the missile detonation may have destroyed the vehicle entirely, along with its rider."
"Does that mean they've stopped searching?" Tracy wonders at the video display.
"You can blow it by revving the engine too much when trying to 'show off' or speed because they're late," Jason says, "While it is possible to force it to fail, it doesn't exactly need a lot of help. Is it possible to compromise the nav system? Yes. Anything is. Is it likely? No, not really. They bike was in bad shape. He's lucky it didn't just fall apart while he was in mid-air."
Cadena spares a glance to the news, but returns his attention to Jason. "Where I'm going with this is ... we met Mike on the roof of the Chinese restaurant where he just happened to have a breakdown of his sky-bike, on his way to a job that we can only presume has to do with our present predicament. He was also present - in a manner of speaking - at the attack on Tracy's apartment building. He has since disappeared, and all these parts seem to line up rather nicely. When there is a great deal of 'coincidence,' I tend to look for possible links of causality."
"There is one variable that isn't being taken into account in that line though, Cadena," Tracy points out. "It would all depend on Jason actually going to help him. Nobody would predict that he'd do that. I wouldn't have thought he would."
"While the search is in its third hour, our prayers go out to the officer's family and friends, and we hope that he or his body will yet be found, to bring closure to this unfortunate event," the reporter says. "And now, a few messages from our sponsors." Cut to a commercial for Duamutef's Donuts.
Cadena shakes his head. "That assumes that only one attempt is made. If you are going fishing, you don't expect to get a bite on the first lure."
"There could have been other opportunities missed that we did not see," the dog adds, "or backup plans if this one didn't work."
"I also saw his escape and Sasha's enraged hunt for him," Jason points out and looks down to the dog. "While things do have extraordinary coincidence there is plenty of evidence that at least exonerates Mike as co-conspirator. And that all said, we don't exactly have any other leads to pursue. These people already know about all of the survivors of the first incident and they're going after us one by one. They haven't exactly learned anything new about us even if this is a trap."
Cadena shakes his head. "I'm not trying to blame Mike. No hacking would be required if he could simply sabotage his own bike and bring it down in the right place. Rather, I'm just entertaining the notion that there might be another 'player' involved in this, one whose agenda we don't yet know about. This doesn't lead me to any particular course of action - it's merely something that intrigues me, and something I would keep an eye out for, to see whether anything else fits the pattern ... or whether it's purely of my own imagining."
Oversized freshly baked donuts spin through the air, followed by a cartoonish creature that looks part lion, hippopotamus, and crocodile trying to catch them, but unable to ever actually reach them. At the end, a smiling jackal plucks one out of the air and gives it to Ammut, who wolfs it down happily.
"There's probably an AI or AD behind it all," Tracy notes, as she creates a new Gloaming account for Cadena to use.
"I always believe there are other actors involved, but I cannot spend all my time looking for them. You're also not noticing the fact that there is no reason Mike would have known any of us would have helped on the bike," Jason points out. "That would have been a guess on his part and nothing more. I could have easily walked away. And yes, there is an AD behind some of this; the name is Hecate. Sasha has an interface to it."
"Hey, Duam.. Dammo.. I can't pronounce it," Tracy says. "The donut shop. 'Yappy' was in front of it in his message. Wasn't that the portal location you found, Jason?"
The white dog bows his head. "I do not mean to over-work the point, but thank you for entertaining my questions and theories."
"It's a chain, Tracy. Is as likely to be a portal choice as any other location," Jason points out. "Commonly known and visited. You can't even throw a donut in one without hitting a cop."
"So how'd they get it to open in that particular one?" Tracy asks. "Could there have been something planted there to make the link stronger?"
"Nothing wrong with asking questions. They are fair points. I'm just holding judgment on any such connections until we have more evidence one way or another," Jason says and shrugs. "As for how, Tracy? No idea. If I were feeling exceptionally paranoid ... I would suspect the weather control aerials recently installed all over the place."
"Well.. same pantheon.." Tracy notes. "Zeus, Hecate.. Greek gods."
"That should give connections-dog something to concoct more conspiracies on," Jason jokes and thumbs towards Cadena.
"It does not inspire any further conspiracy theories at this time," Cadena concedes, "but I will be sure to let you know if any come to mind."
"Time for that later," Tracy notes. "Cadena, you need a name for your character and.. well, everything else too."
"Hmm," Cadena ponders this. "I suppose I could just make such decisions in the in-game interface. Aren't there typically randomized game suggestions to pick from if I haven't any ideas already?"
"Yeah, there's a fast setup option," Tracy notes, and starts to affix Cadena's special goggles to the canine's head. "Oh, Jason.. be sure to bring a disposable toothbrush with you, and if you're going to be out later than 10 you'd better call."
"My plan tonight is roughly this, I want to drive a wedge between Mav's Mavericks and Irongrip ... as well distract ... what? A toothbrush? Why?" Jason has to ask.
Tracy looks at Jason from where she's bent over Cadena. "To brush your teeth with after dinner, of course!" she points out. "In case you want to have a good-night kiss."
"That sounds very sensible," Cadena says, nodding.
"Now you're just being silly. There won't be any kissing," Jason claims and rolls his eyes. "Anyway, as I was saying, my plan is to make the warehouse look like an Irongrip ambush with myself used as their bait (and pawn). "If I can arrange it, I'm going to make it look like one of the bots shoots me ... in the vest. To remove me from being a suspect, that is."
"Oh, do you have like.. a tracking chip inplanted so I can keep track of where you are?" Tracy asks Jason.
"No? I have tracking implants of any type. I have enough issues with having crap in my head as it is," Jason points out. "I prefer to be the ghost in the machine, 'not the here he is with a transmitter!' guy in the machine."
"Oh, Mr. Edwards," Cadena says, with some concern in his voice as he looks in the general direction of the personal body armor, "please forgive me if I am telling you something you have already taken into account, but please keep in mind that with modern body armor, there is still some risk of penetration by bullets if fired from close enough range, and even with the distribution of force across a wider area, bone fractures and internal trauma can still occur. A bulletproof vest is not yet, as they say, a 'magic vest.' You might require medical attention afterward."
"It's going to be faked," Tracy says. "No real bullets, just special effects.. right?"
"Rubber or similar, yes. I'm not about to have myself shot with an armor-piercing round after all," Jason answers. "And I can live with a few bruises. It won't be close range, it's an ambush after all. No option I can think of in dealing with this is going to be safe, quite frankly. And it's not like I can show up in full armor."
"What's Cadena going to do?" Tracy asks. "He can't really drive the getaway car.. I think.." She eyes the engineered dog's clever paws.
Cadena shakes his head. "That would be illegal. I am not licensed, and since I am at least partly an organic entity, I cannot be certified as an AI autopilot."
"Nothing we're currently doing is legal," Jason points out.
"We won't be killing anyone though," Tracy says, before taking a deep breath. "I'll probably need your help to sniff out Randall and Mara though, Cadena."
Cadena nods. "I am likely to be more helpful in that regard, and less likely to put random passersby at risk in that role."
"The main goal is chaos and misdirection, as well as keeping them occupied while someone gets Randall and Mara out. And be aware, Mara may be drugged," Jason adds. "And if things go badly for me, well ... Holly I'm sure can manage things in my absence."
"I thought you were always complaining about how my mother handles things?" Tracy asks.
"I'll be too dead to care," Jason points out.
Tracy sticks her tongue out at Jason, and links up her own VR gear. She finally remembers to take off the wig first though, revealing that Bad Hair Days run in the Trudeau family women.
"If either of you have a better plan, I'm all ears," Jason points out.
"I confess," Cadena says, "I don't even know what options are available to us. For all I know, perhaps if we knew where Officer Randall was being held, we could ... I don't know ... slip through a portal in a Duamutef Donuts shop, navigate our way around in the Gloaming World, pop back out in the abandoned warehouse or subway tunnel where he's held captive, and then hop back in? I know, it sounds crazy, but it's hard to tell what's supposed to be sane anymore."
"That would work if we could control where a portal opens. We can't," Jason points out.
"That would be handy," Tracy admits. "I'll try to find Potemkin Town while Cadena gets his VR legs. And I'm sure we'll be doing as much intelligence gathering as we can before the one-o'clock meeting."
"The only thing I can think of, then," Cadena says, "would be to try to gather as much information as we can that might be relevant to this, beforehand, and why someone would want to abduct Tracy, Officer Randall, and others."
Tracy puts on her VR helmet, and reclines her chair back. Before she logs in to The Gloaming, though, she tells Jason, "It's still a date, you know."
"That answer, I suspect, is surprisingly simple. Someone is collecting all the people associated with the first event," Jason remarks as he closes his case. He sighs as he shakes his head, rising. "No, it isn't. It is dinner with an old friend," he claims and heads towards his private bedroom and bath. "A date would involve flowers, somehow."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-01-09-cadena-in-london.htmlMonday, Dec 2, 2069 - 4 PM
Brother Cadena skulks through the back alleys of Old London. Even if it weren't night, a thick fog covers the streets so he can only make out the muddy ground yards away from him, and the electrical streetlamps that he's seen look like will o' the wisps hanging in midair from a distance. Up close, this one is a standard lamp post, iron painted black to protect it from the elements, but the lamp itself is a large foot-diameter sphere of glass and bright sparks arc from the electrodes in the center to the outside.
At this time of the night, he sees no one else on the streets, but then he has been trying to avoid the wide-open main streets, with all sorts of unknown dangers. The mysterious factions that he has been warned against? Monsters and denizens of this world? An animate help interface like Renard, gone berserk and seeking to kill him for reasons of which he's not entirely sure?
Wait, there's a voice up ahead. He sees only one shadowy form, but whomever it is appears to be talking to someone else. "... like he doesn't want to be found. It's weird!"
It occurs to Brother Cadena that there's something stunted about his perception of the world, though he can't quite put his finger on it. The smells? The sounds? Something seems a bit off, as if things were a bit dimmer than he was accustomed to. However, he seems to have other sensations to concern himself with - for instance, the staff, which seems to be leading him, though he's not entirely just how. Toward that end, he tests the staff again. Not quite certain how this is supposed to work, he brings it close, and whispers, "I seek Treasa Truclaw," not quite certain if it can "hear" him or if it even needs to. Then, he carefully tests to see if it seems to be tugging or otherwise leading him in any way before he even thinks about entertaining his curiosity regards the shadowy form.
Away from Renard's manor, the staff's tuggings have grown much fainter and harder to read. Now that he has prompted it again, it seems to be reinvigorated with whatever mystic ability grants it the ability to locate something on his behalf. Presently it would seem to take him past this shadowy form... Not directly toward, as far as he can tell, but he would need to get past him, her, or it.
The voice continues, "Yeah, maybe they're just havin' us on. Wild goose chase."
Whether these folks are just on some random quest of their own, or minions of the homicidal fox, Cadena has no idea, but he reasons that if they're friendly, they'll forgive him for not coming right up and paying his respects.
"Yeah... Yeah. I guess I'll just look around a bit more," agrees the shadowy figure. As Cadena's eyes study the figure, it seems as if he's talking to something held in his hand.
Brother Cadena surveys the walls of the buildings, and then examines his hands - sans razor-sharp claws - and gauges the chances of taking a vertical route as "less than optimal." Pressing himself against the walls and trying to slide past unnoticed seems likewise chancy. He retreats further into the shadows, hoping that the city has something approximating a grid layout, with some sort of crossway he could use to find a parallel route. Tentatively, he whispers to the staff, "If you have any tricks regarding showing me a path that does not lead me past potentially hostile entities, or perhaps even a way of notifying Treasa Truclaw - and Treasa Truclaw alone - of my whereabouts, I would be most grateful."
The staff continues to point that way, past the shadowy figure.
Brother Cadena lets out a breath, seeing that, whatever cleverness the staff holds, it isn't about to give him an alternate route.
Making a slight change in plans, Brother Cadena tries to make his way along the street in the general direction hinted at by the staff, uncertain just how long this mystical "pointing" enchantment is likely to last, considering that it wasn't so long at all since he was dashing away from the fox. A jog down a side street might lead him just about anywhere, and he has yet to learn whether this place even follows a rational layout at all. At the risk of being made all the more conspicuous by trying to be inconspicuous, he opts to try to evade the notice of the still-shadowy stranger.
The figure puts whatever it is away, then takes out a different object. About a foot long, it looks unnervingly like a weapon of some kind. Fortunately for Cadena, he is looking in completely the wrong direction to spot him.
Cautiously, Cadena continues along, mindful of any sudden redirections from the staff. After all, his objective might be moving, and based upon his experience with the doorway in the fox's mansion and that cryptic hint, he can't even be sure that this realm is a truly contiguous space.
The figure waves a hand over the tool he's brandishing, held by one end as if it were a knife. He turns around, now facing where Cadena was standing moments ago.
The figure calls out, "Hello? Is someone out there?"
Brother Cadena, figuring that answering would negate any advantage whatsoever he might have in the avoidance of trouble on the way, opts not to reply.
The staff continues to guide Cadena down the street. The figure soon fades into the shadows. Ahead, a tall building comes into view, two towers side by side creating dark silhouettes against the sky.
Brother Cadena continues wordlessly along, genuinely curious about his surroundings, but also mindful that if he goes gawking and looking up, slack-jawed at the architecture, it would negate any ability of the cowl to hide his inhuman face from random passersby. He still doesn't know whether or not that could cause a scene (but best to be careful, until he learns the "rules," just the same).
As he gets closer, it becomes apparent that the staff is leading him toward the gates of a cathedral, judging from the chiseled lines of the building's sides. Streetlamps create a zone of light around the fancily carved doors, upon which twin lion-heads clench rings in their mouths. Knockers, presumably.
A momentary feeling of relief at seeing a place associated with sanctuary is immediately replaced by dread. I don't know the rules here. I'm not even sure who I am. All I know is my mission, and barely that. Brother Cadena checks his cowl again, and obediently continues along where he is led, clutching tightly to the only compass he has for an unfamiliar world ... but also varying his step, listening to hear if there might be an "echo" of a footstep that's slightly out of sync, hinting at someone following him and trying to match his pace to avoid detection.
Out of sight, in the fog, but not out of hearing, regular footsteps seem to be coming in Cadena's direction. If he were to attempt the front door, it might be best to do so quickly before whomever it is can see him in the light.
Brother Cadena has no particular desire to stay open and exposed any longer than is strictly necessary anyway. He hastens to the front door.
The tugging of the staff is strong here and definitely indicates whatever route he needs to follow should lie within the cathedral... But unfortunately for Brother Cadena, the doors are barred.
Brother Cadena raps on the door with the staff's tip, and listens to hear whether those footsteps change pace in response, or whether there's any activity within....
Someone stirs inside, and a few seconds later a slot in the door opens. A soft voice speaks. "What brings you to our abbey so late at night, friend?"
"I beg your pardon," Cadena says, trying to gather his thoughts into some semblance of order, "but I seek sanctuary, off of the streets for the night, if only for a few minutes to gather my breath and my bearings. I was looking for a friend, whom I believe should be in this part of the city, but I was interrupted by a ruffian who threatened me with a bared blade. It does not seem to be safe out at this hour. I apologize for assuming upon the church's hospitality."
"Of course, of course, the Church lives to serve," the kindly voice says. Cadena hears loud thumps and then a door swings open.
Cadena bows his head low and humbly. "I am most grateful." He heads in, careful not to bang the staff on anything on the way.
"I am Brother Thompson," the monk says as he holds the door open, then closes it after Cadena.. Noting his robe and staff, he adds, "Do you serve the Lord as well?"
The high vaulted space of the cathedral is dark, and the moonlight casts faint colored shadows through the stained glass windows. Brother Thompson appears to have been making his rounds to judge from the lamp being held in one hand.
"To the best of my ability," Brother Cadena says, adding sadly, "though I have been lacking direction as of late." He takes a deep breath, and adds, "By any chance, is there a young lady within your parish by the name of Treasa, who might live in the area? I have been sent to find her, but to be honest, I have been given scant direction other than that and a very general location."
"That name doesn't ring a bell," Brother Thompson says with a chuckle, looking skyward to where the bells would be hanging in their towers. "But I shall pray that you find her soon." He escorts Cadena deeper into the abbey, to a side room where he can sit and rest.
The staff continues to tug in Cadena's hands toward the back of the abbey. "May I bring you some refreshments?" asks Brother Thompson. "Something to drink, perhaps?"
Brother Cadena is mindful of the tug, following it as best he can. "That is quite all right, but not necessary," he says. "I need only a moment to gather my thoughts ... though perhaps you can tell me what street I am on, and the name of this cathedral? It might help me to get back on course."
"Are you so far astray then? This is St. George's, in Bloomsbury," Brother Thompson says sympathetically. He nods to the bench. "If you'll wait here, I'll put on a spot of tea."
Brother Cadena looks around, nodding at the name. "I am fairly certain I have not visited here before, at the least - and a spot of tea would be good about now." He tries to sort out his bearings, and how far off the mark he really is at this point.
This room looks like a typical visitor's waiting room. Wooden benches with ironwork ends line the walls, and the table in the center is hard, polished wood. Brother Thompson lights a candle and inserts it into a holder near the entrance. "I'll be back in a few moments, then," he says to Cadena, before he departs.
The staff's tugging seems perceptibly lesser to Cadena, though it still indicates that whatever he wants is in the back rooms. Likely a supply room... Though how would one of those get him closer to Treasa?
Brother Cadena bows, and waits a suitable time, watching for the departure of the light and footsteps down the hall. Only then does he reach for the candle's holder, to follow the staff's tugging toward the supply room or whatever he might find. If it leads to a simple dead end, with no clue of progress, then he shall have to hasten back and mull over things with a spot of tea and follow that childhood rule of "if you get lost, stay in one place" for a change. And if it leads somewhere else ... well, he'll just have to find a way to make up the trouble to Brother Thomas later on as the opportunity presents itself.
With candle in one hand and staff in the other, Cadena finds himself led shortly in a dusty storeroom. There are spare candles, jugs containing unknown liquids, robes and vestments, and other tools of the priestly trade. What there is not, however, is a door in the wall to which the staff has led him. Yet that is where it points, most definitely.
Brother Cadena finds a candle holder amongst the supplies and places the candle in it before setting it down, cautious to keep it well away from unidentified liquids, robes, and unknown combustibles, so that he might more carefully examine the wall. A secret passage, perhaps? He is also mindful of the strange fox's trick with the rapier. He taps at the wall to see if it might simply be hollow, then tries tracing an imaginary door frame along the wall with the tip of the staff, in hopes of replicating the fox's feat.
The fur prickles on the back of Cadena's neck. There's definitely potential here. And then as he sets the staff's tip to the wall... It sticks as if magnetized, and a glowing line follows where he draws!
"Lord, please guide me to Treasa Truclaw," Brother Cadena prays, as he continues the path, "and bless Brother Thomas for his hospitality."
The doorway takes form, and the light dies down from blinding to a simple glow. Now if it works, all Cadena has to do is to push it open... And step through.
... which is exactly what he attempts to do.
The door opens onto... A dusty old apartment, but a modern one. Where it's night in London, it's day here to judge from the light pouring in through the windows, and just outside there's a giant Faberge egg-like airship tied up to a pirate airship, distinctively black with a white skull and crossbones blazoned on its side.
Zoom! A gray aircraft of some kind zips through the air, unloading machine gun fire at the pirates.
Brother Cadena gives the garish pirate airship a "You've got to be kidding me!" look, and then snaps to the business of resolving his surroundings and whether or not there could be any alarmed occupants scrambling to point weapons in his direction.
Tiny scooters dart back from the airliner, as pirates retreat with their stolen valuables, firing blue rays of light from their bulbous guns. They start casting loose lines, making good their retreat.
Behind Cadena, the blue-glowing door still opens onto the dusty storeroom. Around him is the detritus of an apartment that hasn't been used in years... Wait. Are those pawprints in the dust? And footprints?
The staff continues to tug in Cadena's hand, this time toward the front door.
Taking his chances, Cadena closes the door behind him; it wouldn't do to let poor Brother Thomas wander into a dangerous place such as this, after all. He takes a passing glance at the pawprints and footprints, for whatever faint clue they might give on this world's inhabitants, but his primary concern is to stay on track, so he makes way for the front door as directed.
Once closed, the door's outlines fade away and in a few seconds it's as if it was never there; in its place is an ordinary closet door.
Brother Cadena fleetingly thinks back to a little girl's fear that there might be monsters hiding in the closet, but casts it aside, as he attends to the quest at hand.
The tracks seem, oddly enough to Cadena, to lead in the same direction as the staff's tugging. They go through the back halls of the abandoned apartments to an odd sort of patio: there are couches, a large sign reading 'Blackwoods Arms', and one side is a glassy window looking out onto New Metropolis... But there are two tubes running up along the side of the building, and over them a plaque '37-A'.
The trail leads toward one of them, the one that would be going up. There are ladder rungs along the side of the tunnel, and catch rings spaced every twenty feet should someone happen to fall off and need to grab at the side to catch themselves. It seems improbable that people normally climb up and down these things, however.
A feeling of dread fills Cadena, at the thought that if he can simply bid his staff to find the way to Treasa Truclaw, some untold number of others who know their way around better could have gotten there long before him. Not, that is, that he's entirely certain who they might be, or how they might even know to be looking for her in the first place. Whatever the case, he decides that it's best not to question the staff this far along, and so he moves it to his sling again and takes to the rungs.
Cadena climbs steadily, rung after rung. When he gets to the top, he finds an airship station, a platform extending out from the top of this building like a bridge to nowhere, its flags blowing wildly in the wind. A ticket seller robot gazes emotionlessly at him from behind the bulletproof glass of an aerodynamic booth, its lines Art Deco curves, and holographic displays show schedules and route information.
There - a blue glow behind the ticket booth!
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-01-09-tracys-misadventures.htmlMonday, Dec 2, 2069 - 4 PM
While Jason takes care of his preparations and Cadena wades through the new players' intro - at least that's what she assumes he's doing - Tracy settles into the big comfy papasan chair that she moved in a few weeks ago, and slips her VR headset on. Scanning bars slide across her vision as it establishes contact, and then the world itself slips away, to be replaced by the Dantech logo, then the words "The Gloaming", silvery metal reflecting an unseen moon and stars.
Treasa Truclaw steps out of the shadows, back into the abandoned New Metropolis apartment. There were large dog tracks back where she came in from Old London. Or wolf's tracks? Perhaps Face Reality had scrambled its agents together across multiple dimensions in a hurry, and Yappy or Graymuzzle had set the fire by accident, or to distract pursuit and cover their tracks.
She's following the trail of dusty pawprints now, through the back hallways of the apartments. Windows look out onto the city of New Metropolis, which could almost be mistaken for North Bend or any other modern city with skyscrapers, if you didn't mind the Gothic bent to the architecture, the float tubes that run up along the side of the buildings, or the airships that gleam like giant Faberge eggs, surely too heavy to fly in any sensible world. It's daytime in the city now, but time passes differently in this world, sometimes faster and sometimes slower as the computers that run it direct.
Up ahead the trail leads to a disused float tube station. Normally it would be a wide open space full of light, one side entirely transparent, and one would step into one of the side by side float tubes to be gently raised or lowered a floor at a time to where one wished to go... But this building looks to have been condemned; the power's out and the tubes aren't running, making them cavernous shafts with ladders running along the sides. The pawprints lead to the one that would normally go up.
Just then, her message orb pulsates against her chest. She wears it as a necklace under her clothes, easy to take out when she wants, hidden in her clothes without giving away her position by light.
Fishing out the orb, Tracy examines its depths to see who is trying to contact her.
"Treesy! Are you okay? Don't you live in the Arcadia Towers, where that attack was?" It's Cait Sindorel, a faerie that Tracy has teamed up with from time to time. She looks like a young girl, if not for the long pointed ears, but the long dragonfly wings that stretch from her back make her a little hard to disguise under the best of circumstances. Normally she relies on her smallness, being a foot high and thus easy to conceal beneath voluminous clothes. She's come in handy on a few heists.
"Cait?" Treasa replies. "Oh that.. uh.. yeah, I heard about it. I'm okay though." She doesn't think she'd have been very specific about where in the towers she lived when talking to Cait, as she's been careful to keep her identity obscure in the game world.
Cait smiles. "Well, that's good! In game for long enough? I've got a line on a few things we could liberate."
"I'm on a special mission, sort of, and going to be helping a greenie dry his ears," Tracy says. "So can't really break off for a side-quest at the moment."
"I'm just a sidequest to you?" Cait gives Tracy sad faerie eyes.
"It's just that I'm on a time limit, sort of," Treasa notes. "The Wild Hunt is searching for a special target.. and I aim to grab it first. They need to see that they aren't above a little balancing, you know?"
Cait grins. "Ooh, that sounds fun. Want some help then?"
Treasa thinks about it. It might be hard to keep the true nature of things hidden from Cait.. but the faerie is handy and mobile and a good spy. "I'm in New Metropolis," Treasa says, giving in with a grin.
"Right, be there in a few! Give me a beacon?" Cait draws a wand from somewhere on her person - how can skimpy clothes manage to hide so many tools, and where does she fit the loot?
Using the orb as if it were a piece of chalk, Treasa draws a complex symbols on the floor, and then taps the center to activate the beacon over the message link.
The orb leaves green lines behind as Treasa draws. Once she completes the symbol, it lifts into the air, then shrinks... or recedes into the distance, if the distance were the center of the orb, and reappears on the other side, at the tip of Cait's wand. "Got it!" Cait says with a smile and wink.
"I could use someone with wings right about now," Treasa admits, and leans against the wall to wait for the faerie's arrival.
The orb blinks as Cait disconnects, then resumes its normal glassy appearance.
Treasa takes a moment to try and figure out which floor she's on.. there should be a plaque near the tube entrance, after all.
The old and tarnished plaque reads "37A." A larger sign nearby proclaims this to be the Blackwoods Arms apartments, but presumably that refers to this floor of the building.
"I guess this is the 'A' tower then," Treasa guesses. She eyes the ladder, and decides to keep going.. Cait will find her.
Catching the ladder rungs, Treasa checks climbs up to the next level, and then checks the rungs further up for dust. She figures if they aren't coated, then her quarry climbed up further.
Up... Up... Five minutes later, she's followed the float tube up to an airship station, a platform extending out from the top of a building like a bridge to nowhere, its flags blowing wildly in the wind. A ticket seller robot gazes emotionlessly at her from behind the bulletproof glass of an aerodynamic booth, its lines Art Deco curves marred by cracks and water stains. behind it are white billboards that would normally be lit up with route and schedule information.
Aproaching the booth, Treasa taps on the glass to see if the robovendor is still active. "Helloooo in there," she croons.
Whirr... Bzzt.. Click! The robot stirs. "Good afternoon, madam! How may I assist you?"
"I'd like to know the airship schedule, please," Treasa responds.
The robot pretends to consult the book in front of it. "To where do you wish to go, madam?"
"Potemkin," Treasa says, hoping there'll be an actual route established already.
"Very good, madam," the robot says. Whirr. "I regret to say this station is not in active service, madam. There is no airship scheduled to arrive at this station for the next day. The last departure was an unregistered airship, eight hours ago."
"Can you give me details about that airship?" Treasa asks. "Such as: who boarded or disembarked, which direction did it come from and which did it go off in?"
The robot buzzes and clicks. "The Black Thorn was boarded by one passenger. Unidentified and unticketed." It sounds disapproving. "No itinerary is on registry for the Black Thorn, but passengers are advised that the Black Thorn is a pirate vessel. We caution against attempting to fly with pirate vessels."
"Passengers may be at risk of robbery, bodily harm, or even murder," the robot clarifies.
"Did it bear a symbol or crest?" Tracy asks. "Was it marked by The Wild Hunt?" she clarifies.
The robot whirrs. "The Black Thorn, like other pirate vessels, is customarily marked by a white skull and crossbones on its black-painted side. We caution passengers to avoid such vessels. Should your airship be accosted by a pirate vessel, please remain calm, as local defense forces will move to assist you as quickly as possible. Under no circumstances should you attempt to exit an airship in midflight."
"Well.. thank you for that information," Treasa tells the robot, and then heads for the edge of the airship landing to get an overview of the city, in case something is visible from up here. She doesn't know if Potemkin is exposed or inside of a building yet.
New Metropolis by day looks like a fusion of North Bend with retrofuturistic visions of bronze. Most transportation seems to be accomplished through airships, small ones and large, and indeed just over there, past a glassy skyscraper, a pirate ship is accosting a larger passenger airliner.
At this distance the sounds of guns and stunbeam fire are muted. Closer to home, Tracy gets a prickle up the back of her neck. Someone's opened a portal nearby!
Reflexively, Treasa hurries back to put the ticket booth between her and the direction she thinks the portal tingle is coming from. It's probably Cait, she realizes.. but caution never hurts.
The prickles die away. A short-lived portal then. Opened just long enough for someone to cross between worlds.
Treasa tenses and listens. Cait should announce herself.. unless she's going to play Hide and Seek first. Moments like this are always nerve wracking for Treasa.
Nothing seems to be happening so far, at least here. Gray winged fighters zip through the air, distracting Treasa momentarily. The defense forces have finally arrived to relieve the airliner of its pirate assailants.
Drawing her knife, Treasa began to creep around the ticket booth, until she could see the lift shaft housing. If it was Cait, and she couldn't find Treasa, then she should be expecting a call on her orb soon enough.
Aha! There, just on the other side of the ticket booth, a small dragonfly-winged faerie is flying low, peering around in search of Treasa.
With a sigh of relief, Treasa starts to put away her knife.. and then pauses. She has some reason to be paranoid, after all, so steps back to where she can quickly hide behind the booth again, hiding her knife behind it as well. "Hey Cait," she calls out. "Have any trouble finding me?"
"Eek!" A faerie squeak on the other side. "How'd you know I was here?"
"Well, I was expecting your arrival," Treasa points out. "And there's only one way up here from where I sent the beacon."
Cait buzzes about the booth, joining Treasa. "And you didn't take the opportunity to jump on me and tickle me from behind?" She grins impishly up at Treasa. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I've been a bit on edge lately," Treasa admits. "I think the Hunt has me on their target list too for some reason. Anyway.. ever hear of a place called Potemkin, built by a bunch of people that aren't even sharing an alignment?"
"Potemkin... Potemkinpotemkinpotemkin," Cait says, looking up in thought.
"It's just a mockup of a real-world place, built in-game," Treasa says. "It's around here somewhere, maybe inside one of the buildings. It's got a mall and everything.."
The faerie points out, "It's a really funny word to say, isn't it? Potemkin! Like potato. Anyway, now that you remind me, I think I remember something. Wasn't it mentioned in one of our guild newsletters? Some people looking for others to move in, help out with the maintenance cost? It sounded like one of those crazy art projects, kinda like all those 'help me build a Utopia' deals."
"I never thought of it as an art project, but that makes sense," Treasa admits. "But if that's the case, it shouldn't be hard to find, right? There must directions to it somewhere."
"Let me pull it up," Cait says. She acquires the vacant look of the AFK, and then a moment later, snaps her fingers. "Got it. It's a set of three skyscrapers all linked together..." She points across the city, and now that she's pointed it out, it's obvious to Tracy. They look just like Arcadia Towers.
The hair on the back of Tracy's neck prickles. Cait looks up. "Someone's coming," she says.
"I'll head up," Tracy says, pointing to the roof over the tubes. "You want to hide behind the booth and run distraction?"
Cait says, "Sure!" She darts off.
Treasa heads to one of the support poles for the tube rain-cover, and climbs quickly.
A mysterious robed figure climbs up the float tube and gazes out into the airship station. There-- something is glowing blue behind the ticket booth!
The mysterious robed figure stoops over, hands to knees, pausing to pant, puff, gasp, and even wheeze. It must not have taken the climb all that well.
The blue glow starts to dwindle.
Holding one hand to its cowl, the mysterious robed figure looks upward, pulling forth a staff from a sling, and tapping at empty air. Then, it heads over toward the blue glow.
When the figure appears to take the bait, Treasa tries to silently drop down from her perch to get behind it.
The mysterious figure spins about, holding the staff in a defensive posture, to face the descending stranger.
Treasa lands and stands up, then puts her hands on her hips. "Caddy?" she asks, seeing the figure's face now. "In a world with werewolves, you still look like a doggy!"
The cowled figure stops and blinks, glancing to the staff, then bows. "Lady Treasa Truclaw, I presume?"
The blue glow disappears. A small dragonfly-winged faerie, barely a foot tall, shimmers into visibility atop the ticket booth, holding what looks like tiny scale model ninja throwing spikes. "You know this guy?" she calls.
Treasa bows, saying, "At your service." To Cait she notes, "This is the greenie I mentioned, so yeah, I know him. Just not his name yet."
"My apologies, my lady," the figure says. "I am Brother Cadena, and, I am sorry to say, I know little more than that, save that I was sent to find you. I received a hostile welcome upon my arrival to..," he looks around, blinking, "not precisely here, but ... yes ... it was called the Hall of Dreaming, I do believe he said, if he is to be believed."
Cait flits up. If she weren't a foot tall with sharp pointy ears, she could be a young teenage girl with short-cropped red hair and green eyes, wearing a violet version of Tinkerbell's outfit. Her ninja throwing spikes have vanished, but it doesn't seem feasible she could have concealed them on her person. "Pleased to meetcha! I'm Cait Sindorel, League."
Brother Cadena returns his staff to its sling, and bows to the fey. "I am pleased to meet you as well, Miss League. Might I inquire ... just where is this place?"
"Well, Brother Cadena, you've completed your first quest then since you've found me!" Treasa says with a smile. Then she points out the familiar looking tower in the distance. "And that's where we're going next, welcome to New Metropolis. I guess you piggybacked on the beacon I set earlier?"
"Oh no, that's not my last name! I mean, I'm with the League of Extraordinary Persons," Cait clarifies, looking amused. "Like Treesy here! Someone explained to you about factions, right?"
"Oh," Brother Cadena says, apologizing. "I cannot say that it was explained to me, save that apparently I either am or am not in one, depending upon whom I believe, and how I interpret it." He turns to Lady Truclaw, and adds, "I do not know how to answer your question, since I don't know of beacons nor piggybacks. I observed the behavior of an individual, and used this staff to find the way. I regret that while this individual was in one sense helpful, he also apparently wanted to kill me, which ... was rather confusing to me."
"Huh, weird," Treasa notes. "Did he try very hard to kill you?"
Cait leans toward Treasa. "Is he... a role player?" she whispers.
"It's kinda complicated," Treasa whispers back. "But.. yeah, that's the simplest explanation."
"I honestly have nothing to compare it to," Brother Cadena says. "I ... I believe I was expecting some sort of instructions. The first one who appeared gave me a quest without ... without really telling me much more than that. When I asked for help in hopes someone might come, there came a stranger ... well, honestly, no stranger than myself, I suppose." He puts his hand to his nose, as if one thing or the other, or perhaps both are unfamiliar. "He was a fox, or a fox-like creature - a musician, but also a warrior, with the personality of a trickster from a fable. He urged me not to take things too seriously. But then I seem to have said something to upset him, because then he became a bit serious about skewering me. I thought it wise to run rather than to ask for further explanation."
The faerie sighs. "Okay, well, a lot of the Gloaming is people trying to kill other people for no good reason," she says. "But it's not usual for someone to be tryin' to kill a greenie right off the bat. You're sure you didn't sign any papers, take any oaths, before that?"
"Sounds like one of your relatives, Cait," Treasa comments. "A fey trickster. Also.. what color was the fox?" The latter she directs to Brother Cadena - before wondering just how much color vision he even has.
Cait looks defensive. "I have lots of relatives! Not many foxes in the family though."
"I signed no papers, nor was I given the opportunity," Brother Cadena says, shaking his head. "There was a book - I believe it was magical - but I never had the opportunity to peruse it further. I did see this word - 'The Gloaming' - just before the book appeared. I was asked a very sort of philosophical question, and bid to return with an answer. And as for the fox ... well, he was a standard red fox. Ahem. I suppose 'standard' isn't quite right in this context, but I mean to say, the coloration was what you would expect. He was, if you'll pardon my expression, something of a dandy in his choice of attire."
"Hmmm, did anyone actually tell you to find me though?" Treasa asks, sounding suspicious.
"No," Brother Cadena says. "They most certainly did not, and I believe I was being followed for most of the way, despite my very best attempts to evade detection." He abruptly bows. "Please forgive my foolishness! The long climb made me lose my train of thought. I was unable to tell for certain if I shook my pursuers, though I believe I have passed through a total of three, perhaps four worlds this day."
Cait rubs her forehead. "Okay. If this were going normally, you're supposed to have some people come up and show you the ropes. Telling you why you should side with them and not with those other people." She looks over at Treasa. "Is that where we come in?"
"The fox claimed he could tell immediately what faction I was in," Brother Cadena adds. "Is that something everyone can do, just as they can cut open doorways with rapiers and staves?"
"Doorways.. you mean portals?" Treasa asks.
"Well, anyone who's a player-- 'scuse me, an 'Awakened'," Cait says, making air quotes around the last word.
"Uhm ... portals, yes," Brother Cadena says. "I am not certain if there is a proper term for it, but I mean the ability to open up a passagew-- Awakened. Yes! He used that word."
"I confess that I cannot remember whether he specifically called me an Awakened, or whether he specifically said I was not one," Brother Cadena says. "I merely assumed that it described whatever he was. But then, I also assumed he was friendly and had come there to help me."
The pirate airship sails away, flame trailing from its rear as the military fighters harry it. The wounded large passenger airliner rises slowly.
"Er," Brother Cadena says, as he looks out at the passenger airship, worried. "I hope they are going to be quite all right? I don't intend to be callous about their fate, but I honestly have no idea how I am intended to come to their aid. What sort of lawless place is this that ... I'm just going to guess those are pirates, but it almost seems too obvious."
"I don't like the 'being followed' part of that," Treasa notes. "We need to get over to those towers, and there aren't any airships docking here soon." She goes to the edge of the roof and searches for bridges or other connections between the towers, since it's a long climb down to the street otherwise.
Brother Cadena bows again. "If there is any way I might assist, please let me know. I ... I don't know if this will work, but...." He retrieves his staff, and clasps his hands in prayer. "Lord, please guide me, if it be Your will, to those towers that Lady Truclaw seeks out, in a way that does not involve quite so much climbing or falling."
Cait laughs. "It's all right! It's just scenery. I tried to save them once. For the next hour or so, I had some idiots milling around on the ship deck saying they needed to get back on the airship I'd just saved them from. After that, they got off meek as mice on the station top and hailed the next airship out." She looks at Cadena curiously. "Oh, you're a Finder?"
Brother Cadena opens one eye, regarding Ms. Cait. "If indeed a 'Finder' is my calling, then I have something to call myself at least. Given that I was asked to find an answer, and to find Lady Truclaw, that seems as apt a title as any."
Sparks of light crackle around the base of the staff, then arc along its length to coalesce at its top. It bursts, like a plasma soap bubble popped, to leave the staff apparently unchanged.
"But Finders are just a.. well.. myth, I thought!" Treasa notes in surprise. "Or at least so rare that that's what people think."
The large passenger airliner makes for the nearest airship dock... This one. It billows black smoke from its damaged rear section.
"Ah," Brother Cadena says, "if they're really quite that rare, then I won't claim to be one, as I ... oh. That passenger airliner! I suppose I do need to assist them after all! A bit late to the fact, I'm afraid, but still ... there may be wounded!" With renewed purpose, he takes his staff in one hand, holds his cowl low with the other, and dashes toward the docking station, light robes and drapes flowing behind him as he runs.
"Well, they make for handy explanations," Cait observes. "How'd we find this really amazing set of ruins where a place of power is going to be held and that we'd never have found out about without being tipped off? A Finder did it! Oh, now where is your greenie going?"
"The Spirit guides me!" Brother Cadena calls back behind him as he dashes off. "This way!"
"Well, he's also clearly a cleric," Treasa points out and follows. "Maybe we can get a free ride out of it though!"
The airliner is basically a bronze elongated ovoid, slightly flattened and streamlined, with curlique ironwork running over its surfaces. A gondola roughly the size of a bus hangs beneath the lifting body, flanked by two giant engines with huge propellors. Across its side is written its name, "Rose of Galilee."
As it approaches the dock, airship workers pour out of it and swing down on lines to secure it in place. A previously unnoticed hatch in the building roof opens to release maintenance robots which rush to tend to its damaged components, and the ticket taking robot pushes a switch to light up the station. "Rose of Galilee, now in station! Next departure in thirty minutes," it announces. "Buy your tickets now!"
"Hello there!" Brother Cadena calls out to the first crewman he sees. "I saw the battle - I am trained in the medical arts! Have you any wounded who need assistance?"
"There might be pirates if they were boarded," Treasa warns, gripping the handle of her knife, then turning to the robot. "Where is it headed next?" she asks the mechanical man.
"Ahoy there! Are you a doctor? Funny dress for a doc, I say," calls a salty-looking beareded man in a nautical-styled jacket. The gangplank slams down to the platform and releases coughing passengers.
The ticket vendor peers down at the blank pages in front of it, then reels off a set of stations Cait says, "There, that one, 47th and Market. That'll be spittin' distance from Potemkin."
"My apologies, sir," Brother Cadena says, bowing. "I have only recently arrived here, and have not adjusted to the local customary attire." He stows his staff, and checks the folds of his robes, looking slightly surprised as he pulls forth a first aid kit. "This is all I have with me at the moment for emergencies."
The captain waves Brother Cadena aboard and directs him to the injured crew and passengers. Surprisingly there aren't too many - most of the damage is smoke inhalation, but a few people were injured by shrapnel from explosions and need wounds tended to. Most of the unconscious were hit by the pirates' stun rays, and now have obvious gaps where wristwatches and other jewelry were ripped off. The luggage compartments were also hit. "They took Ms. D'artagne," he says as he directs Cadena. "Nothin' we could do! 'spect her family will be seeing a ransom demand in a few days."
Treasa buys three tickets from the vendor and then joins Cadena. "We can get close to our destination now," she informs the.. monk?
Brother Cadena nods sadly at the captain's tale, and gives Treasa a very brief thanks, as he hastens to tend to the wounded with all the urgency to be expected for a potentially life-threatening ordeal such as this.
While his first aid kit may be limited, his skills are not; in no time at all, Brother Cadena's kindly manners have the passengers back on their feet. They stumble out to await the airship being repaired,
Repairs proceed surprisingly fast. Workers pull away crumpled sections of ship's hull and install new ones, and one individual in a greasy blue overall pounds on the engine with a wrench... Which actually works. It coughs and sputters, then roars back into life.
The prickles on the back of Tracy's neck and the hackles raising on Cadena's neck let them know that a portal has been opened nearby... Probably the very same one that Cadena used moments ago.
Brother Cadena looks to Lady Treasa in alarm.
"How soon will you be launching again, Captain," Tracy asks the airship pilot, while keeping an eye on the tube access. "We're about to have company again, Cait," she notifies the faerie.
"The Rose of Galilee will be departing in twenty minutes!" calls the ticket taker. "Please have your tickets ready and be ready to board in fifteen minutes. In the meantime, snacks and drinks are available in the courtesy lounge."
Cait mutters something about "Popular place, this."
"Yeah, must be Cadena's admirers," Treasa notes. "A Finder is a valuable catch after all. I'm going back up on the roof to get the drop on them," she announces, and hurries to climb back onto the tube-shaft overhang.
The salty-looking captain checks his watch. "Aye, lassy, repairs should be done any time now, an' then we refuel. It's just a matter of regulations, thirty minutes at any stop, scheduled or not, in case of new passengers who should be wantin' a ride."
Brother Cadena rushes over to Lady Truclaw, and bows before her humbly, whatever he was about to say aborted since it seems she already has reached the same conclusion. But then he adds, "I fear that those who are coming may not hold the welfare of bystanders in high regard. We may be putting these people at risk if we remain here aboard the ship. I do not know how to reconcile this with the direction I was given." He pauses as if in prayer, resting one hand upon the staff as he does so.
Two oversized robots trundle up and insert a hose into the side of the Rose of Galilee, presumably the refueling that was promised. One taps its foot and watches a gauge as the other operates a pump.
Looking up and seeing that Lady Truclaw has already vanished while he was praying, Brother Cadena looks over to Ms. Cait. "Pardon my ignorance," he says, "but is there any reason that would justify this sort of reception here? It seems somehow disproportionate a response for a ... a 'greenie,' as you say? And perhaps it is not really all that difficult to 'find' people. Of course, I have nothing to compare it to."
Once in place, Treasa focuses inward and tries to bring on her shapeshift, since if she's going to be in a fight with multiple foes she stands a better chance in her panther form.
"If you're a genuine Finder, well, you'd be more coveted than Queen Sheba's... um, well, let's just say every Faction in the game either has things they'd really like to find, or things they don't want other people to find," Cait explains. "Actually if you're really a Finder, this place should be crawling with people trying to recruit you now. Unless they're keeping it a secret because they don't want other people knowing about you!" Whomever 'they' might be. "Of course I might be wrong, and you're just RPing being a Finder."
"There is always the possibility that," Brother Cadena says, rubbing at his forehead as if developing a headache, "simply as a result of being disoriented, and at the shock of an unexpected attack from a seemingly friendly individual, I have imagined perils where there were none, and have been taken more seriously than one of my limited experience warrants." He looks to Ms. Cait again, and then digs out the mirror from his first aid kit. "Is there anything about my appearance that would warrant someone to attack me on that alone? I was struck by a sensation that something was terribly wrong, and that I really ... shouldn't ... I ... seem to have lost my train of thought."
Brother Cadena gazes momentarily at his reflection, tracing the chain-like blue patterns in the fur on his cheek ruffs, and gingerly tapping at the glassy blue "gem" affixed inexplicably to his forehead.
The faerie looks sympathetic. "Well... You look like a werewolf to me, but no one hates werewolves around here, at least not for just being werewolves. Maybe for being a different faction, but... You say you didn't sign up with any faction?"
"Not knowing the rules for oaths and obligations here," Brother Cadena admits, "I cannot be certain whether merely agreeing to be of assistance to someone or acknowledging someone's superiority might have saddled me with a longer-term commitment than I realized. But, to the best of my knowledge, I specifically avoided signing on with any faction, as the quest-giver seemed to hint that factionalism and the resulting strife was a bad thing ... unless I inferred too much."
Cadena puts away the mirror, and gazes off. "Factions strive one against another, an endless quarreling for power," he recites after some time, slow and uncertain on some of the words. "The struggle is its own reason for being, and one must lose for another to gain. How can anything great be built here? Yet perhaps here you may find the answer to my question."
"Well then, maybe you just misinterpreted people wanting you to join their faction," Cait surmises. "Some people just don't get how they come across when they 'RP', y'know. Like, they think they're being all cool and imposing, but they just look like obnoxious jerks."
Getting onto all fours, Treasa darkens and distorts. Her face pushes out into a muzzle, her hands become paws. A long tail emerges from under her coat, and then the coat vanishes into her fur-sprouting skin as she becomes a large black panther.
And just in time! Something's coming up the float tube... Fast. Too fast to be climbing the rungs.
"You are probably right," Brother Cadena concedes. "It was all new, and I suppose it was a sin of pride to assume too much importance to my own arrival. Renard - that was his name - he approached me as if I should have known who he was, like he knew more about me than I did. But if he really knew more, then why would he have been surprised when I explained about how little I knew about why I was there? Why would he have suddenly decided to turn on me, when he could have just as easily ambushed me before, striking completely from surprise? I've been trying to make sense of it, but perhaps it makes no sense at all ... just a trickster egging me on for his own entertainment." He nods to the fey. "Thank you for helping me to put these things in proper perspective."
Unaware of impending disaster, five or so passengers loaf around on the platform of the airship station, awaiting the boarding call. The rest have gone into the courtesy lounge within the ticket taker's building, there to take advantage of the 'free drinks and snacks'. (how it is possible that these are still available, let alone tasty, when the building itself is supposed to have been abandoned for some years, must be a mystery for the ages)
Flame wooshes out of the upward bound float tube! A red-skinned demon steps forth, at least seven feet tall, batwinged, and wielding a whip of some kind. Where his cloven hooves touch the ground as he lands, smoke rises.
Cadena snaps out of his mulling. "Pardon me, Ms. Cait, but in this world ... that's a bad thing, am I not mistaken?"
"Oh, that's just great, Treasa thinks, since the demon's head is nearly tall enough for her to reach out and touch.
From the other tube emerges a tall woman, blonde, wearing a flowing white dress cut a little low in the front, accentuated with lace. Her eyes glow as she floats upward and out, a few seconds after the demon. Next to her is a dark-skinned man in black leather armor, the very model of a rogue down to the dagger in his hand.
Treasa looks down from her perch, trying to get an idea of which faction this group might belong too.
Cait squeaks. "Um... Mind if I hide in your clothes?" she says, flitting up and clinging to Cadena's shoulders.
Brother Cadena, not taking his eyes off of the spectacle, holds out an arm to make room under his outer cloak. "There should be some space in the first aid kit," he says absently.
The demon glares around. "Where is he? Where is the one whose arrival was foretold?" he growls in a low and gravelly voice.
"That sounds ... rather vague, given the lack of context," Brother Cadena whispers. "Does that mean anything in particular, Miss Cait?"
The angel murmurs, "Calm yourself, Demeritorous. Do you have to make everything into a slight against you personally?"
Foretold? Treasa dislikes that. Even more than seeing a Moon and Sun type working together.
"This one's led us a merry chase," the black-armored man says. "Welcoming a newbie was never so much of a hassle before. And why you two got called out for this..." He glances at the other two.
Cait whispers, "Um. I guess they were supposed to be your welcoming wagon. But still, they look awfully scary."
"This is part of the usual routine, then?" Brother Cadena whispers, hopefully.
Aha! The rogue is probably the only VPC, Treasa reasons. She focuses her attention on his attire, looking for any telltale symbols.
"In the Army of Darkness, all must serve! We are not pampered lordlings like those of the Hellfire Club, sending others to do our biddings," Demitorious declares.
The woman sighs. "Of course, of course. So..." She looks around, then espies the airship. "Could that be where our newbie has gone? I've never heard of one opening a portal before anyone even gets to him before. But a first time for everything!"
"So, Army of Darkness.. the demon may be more bark than bite," Treasa thinks. Rogue is with Shadows, a mercenary, and Angel must be Hellfire Club then..
Taking a gamble, Treasa says from her perch, "Too late, he's with the League now."
The rogue glances toward the passengers. "If you were going to hide, better to do it in a crowd--" He glances up at the panther. "Oh, very sneaky of you, miss." He grins. "So you sent him a message to get away from us so you could get him all to yourself?"
Demeritorous's and the apparent angel's attention go to Treasa as well.
"Actually, he found me all by himself, which was the plan all along," Treasa replies, licking the back of one paw. "He's my pet, you see."
"Is it too much to hope that the refueling might be done before they finish their ... banter?" Brother Cadena whispers to the fey. "And ... let me get this straight. As a normal course of coming to this ... this 'Gloaming' place ... first you come to the Hall of Dreams, where you are presented with a book, a quest-giver tells you your mission and your role, then a helper comes and, if you waste too much of his time, tries to kill you in order to drive you along to your goal ... and then after being chased on a whirlwind tour of the ... ah ... worlds ... a few powerful individuals come to greet you and make dramatic proclamations about your arrival being 'foretold.' I ... can't help but think that something is kind of off about all this, however."
Cait whispers to Cadena, snuggling into his robes and peeking out of his hood, "Well, no, none of that sounds like the normal course of thing. It's usually pretty low key, y'know, 'You're part of a secret conspiracy that knows the truth of things! Only there are a few different ones, and you should pick which one you like better.'"
"Oh." Cadena looks a bit nonplussed at that. "No, I think it was made quite clear to me that I honestly know very little about anything."
The angel, if that's who she is, lifts an eyebrow archly. "And has he been initiated yet, Miss Kitty? Or are you just hoping to smuggle him away from the rest of us interested parties until he's committed for good?"
"That's just a formality," Treasa claims. "We're in the middle of something right now and that can wait until later."
With a loud CLUNK, the robots shut off the refueling operation. They begin to walk off with the hose, while the captain closes the valve. The maintenance robots seem to have completed their repairs now.
The rogue considers the civilians. "Maybe we should ask him in person," he says. "You! The one in the robe! Want to come and have a little chat? Maybe your cat friend here hasn't told you everything you need to know."
Demeritorous shifts his stance, looking ready to leap into action. "Bah! 'Chats'. You make it sound so... Social."
Brother Cadena's eyelid twitches. "I think ... I think I should follow my directions. Take a leap of faith ... or, rather, a sit-down of faith." He moves over to the nearest seating, mindful of Ms. Cait, as he takes his place to wait for whatever is supposed to happen next. "I suspect something's about to be decided for me, whether I like it or not. Again."
"No spells or weapons or coercion," Treasa growls. "And be quick, or else follow along - we aren't missing our airship launch."
Unlikely as it seems, the passengers on the platform haven't taken notice of the demon... Until he begins striding toward them and the airship. Suddenly, they panick! "AHHH! Demon! A devil!"
The angel sighs. "Aggro," she mutters.
"You have to buy a ticket you know!" Treasa calls out. To the others, she says, "You're wasting your time. Cadena isn't going to join up with mercenaries or snobs."
The rogue chuckles. "So, not the League then?"
The angel lifts into the air... And floats toward the airship as well!
The panther hisses. "He's not here to.. never mind. He'll join the League, because we'll let him help people." She hops down from the overhang, and starts to follow.. but not letting the Shadows agent get behind her. "After you," she offers him.
Cait whispers in Cadena's ear, "Oh, the big guy's got the progs stampeded! This is going to be a mess."
The captain takes a look at what's coming, then yells, "Get onboard, ye landlubbers! Man the guns, crew!"
The rogue shrugs. "As you please," he says. Compared to the demon's crooked stride and the angel's floating, his walk seems perfectly ordinary.
"We cannot allow a mess," Brother Cadena says. "There will be ... unintended consequences beyond the obvious." Reluctantly, and shakily, he stands back up, clutching to the staff for support, to face the strange newcomers. He holds up his hand as if in a halting gesture.
"Why isn't there a rep for Blessed Light?" Treasa grumbles. "They're the only other group that'd stand a chance." She watches the demon and plans out possible attacks. The backs of the legs could be vulnerable, and shredding the wings would be handy if he could then be dropped over the side of the building..
The demon comes to a stop at the platform, watching the passengers scurry on the gangplank, then laughs. "Foolish mortals! They are like mice, startled by anything that surprises them. You however... You seem cut from a different cloth," he says addressing Brother Cadena.
The rogue waits patiently behind the demon, and the angel draws up to be even with the devil.
Two self-defense guns on the side of the passenger airliner's gondola swivel and focus on the demon. "Just say the word, sir," a gunner yells to the captain.
"Please accept my sincere apologies," Brother Cadena calls out in as firm a voice as he can manage, "but there has been a terrible misunderstanding. I am not here of my own accord, and I am not permitted to formally join with any faction. I beseech you not to threaten the passengers or crew of this vessel."
The angel's eyes widen. "Are you being held prisoner?" she asks kindly, but her glance goes toward Treasa.
"See?" Treasa calls to the demon. "He's not signing up with anyone, so you should just all leave us alone now."
Demeritorous reaches back to aim a threatening finger at the cat. "Silence!" he declares.
"Gonna throw an old boot at me?" the panther challenges back.
"No harm has come to me," Brother Cadena, "and the one known as Lady Treasa Truclaw has done nothing to threaten or coerce me. I have been given directions by a party that I am unable to identify within the confines of the directions I have received. No harm is intended toward you or any of your respective factions."
"Trifle not with the Army of Darkness," Demeritorous bellows. "I shall teach you to be silent in the presence of your betters!"
The rogue throws a pellet to the ground - and disappears into a puff of smoke!
"Ms. Cait, for reasons that I find very frustrating that I am simply incapable of articulating clearly here, I am unable to take any actions that would mark me as siding with one particular faction over another," Brother Cadena says. "This causes me considerable consternation since Lady Treasa Truclaw's wellbeing is also my high priority. Toward that end, I could use your advice, for my instructions are frustratingly vague on this point. If I may do so without violating this requirement, I shall offer my abilities to try to protect you from the fallout of this conflict, unless you shall be involving yourself directly." His eyelid twitches again, as he carefully picks out his words.
Cait Sindarel pats the big white dog on the cheekruff. "You talk a lot, you know that? It's fine, they're just playing... I think."
"Oh, and Cait's my first name! Just call me Cait, if you start calling me Ms. Sindarel, I'm going to be looking around and wondering who you're talking to," the faerie adds.
At this, perhaps in a token concession toward talking not quite so much, Brother Cadena just nods, watching the confrontation anxiously.
Demeritorious turns fully toward the black cat. His whip hand pulls back, clearly ready to snap it toward Treasa.
The black cat takes advantage of the smoke to seek some cover before Demeritorious can strike! She does this by rushing to get behind the angel.
Crack! Demeritorious lashes out, trying to spot the panther as she moves.
The whip snaps several feet behind the panther.
"Nice try, maybe you should join a circus!" Treasa taunts.
"Now now, dear, we simply want to make sure you're aware there are other factions than the League," the angel says. Her gaze turns toward the cat now crouched near her. "For instance, you could be helping others, pushing back the forces of darkness... Shielding the weak." And at that, she draws a circle in the air, which explodes outward into a disc of energy that protects both her and Treasa.
"Bah! The Blessed Light is a faction of weaklings! True strength lies in crushing others, bending them to serve your will," the demon growls. "All the realms will fall to the Moon, and the Sleepers' lamentations will rise to the heavens as we tread them underfoot!"
Cait whispers to Cadena, "RPers!" She sighs. "No offense intended, but sometimes you just want to get it over with."
"Your pathetic shield will avail you naught!" yells the demon. He growls something deep and his whip bursts into flames... And three imps appear out of the air at his sides! "Go forth, my loyal minions!"
The angel whispers to Treasa, "He's so unmanageable when he's like this! Go, take your friend and get out of here. I'll deal with him."
Her hands begin to glow with light as she readies some sort of counterattack.
"Oh, I thought you were with the Hellfire Club!" Treasa says to the angel. "You'd actually be a good fit for Cadena, once he's able to join something.." She then rushes towards the gangplank.
The airship captain stares at the combat unfolding on the airship platform.
"Captain!" Brother Cadena calls out, not taking his eyes off the confrontation. "Can we possibly get these people away from the danger, on the ship?"
The angel smiles. "Well, we'll have to discuss it... when we don't have a very loud and very annoying demon on our hands," she says.
"All aboard!" roars the captain. The ticket taker emits a loud whirr and screech. "Excuse me, sir, but you are not scheduled to depart for ten more minutes!"
"Irielle, your interference will cease now!" Demeritorious yells. "Imps, catch that cat!" And scurry they do, after the panther.
The angel gets the first move in however, unleashing a wave of blinding light!
KaTHOOM! The light slams into the imps, shredding them into smoke... And Demeritorious himself grits his teeth as he braces as if leaning into a strong wind. Pieces of his armor fly away.
Knocked back a few steps, the demon is forced to flap his wings and take to the air, lest he fall.
Cadena stands in the entryway of the airship, prepared to help anyone coming aboard amidst the explosions and smoke.
Passengers stumble up past Cadena with his help. The ship rocks as the crew start to cut the lines loose. "Sir! Sir," the ticket taker yells. "There'll be a FINE for that!"
Demeritorious returns fire. This time when he cracks his whip, even though it should be too far to reach, it unleashes a searing bolt of fire that heads straight for Irielle.
Alas, it splashes against the shield. The angel Irielle smirks. "Barely felt that," she says.
Treasa leaps for the gangplank - and has to scrabble wildly for a grip since the ship is already lifting off. She finally finds purchase and pulls herself inside, where she immediately attempts to put on an air of 'I meant to do that' as befits her current feline form.
The airliner Rose of Galilee lifts off, despite Demeritorious's yelling, and its self-defense guns keep him covered. It appears that Irielle isn't going to press the idea of having a 'friendly little chat' just now, in favor of keeping Demeritorious from crashing their party...
Of course there's still the rogue, looking down over the railing, dagger in one hand picking out dirt from under his fingernails. "Exciting, wasn't that?" he says. "I think they script it so your escape is always 'just in time.'"
Brother Cadena finally straps himself in, securing the staff and bracing himself with one hand, while reflexively shielding "Ms. Cait" with the other. He casts a worried and apologetic glance toward the cat on the gangplank, then snaps his attention back to the rogue. "Is this the way things are always planned here then, sir?"
"For excitement? You wouldn't want it to be a boring game now, would you," the rogue says with a smile. He flips his dagger to his left hand and holds his right hand out for a handshake. "The name's Fisher. Jack Fisher."
"Do you have any fish though?" Treasa can't help but ask, staying in feline character.
"I didn't realize that excitement was a necessary component for my mission here," the cowled priest says, extending his hand, "but then, there is much I have to learn. I am Brother Cadena."
Jack shakes hands, then rummages through his pouches before giving Treasa an apologetic look. "Fresh out, sorry! But I do have this for you, Mister Cadena." It's a black calling card marked with a silver fishhook. "My organization pays well for people who are very good at what they do... Like myself. If someone needs something... special... done, we do it for them."
Brother Cadena looks over the card, flipping it, for any obvious phone number or address, but somehow doesn't look terribly surprised. "I have no card to offer in exchange, I am afraid. I was thrown into all of this with very little explanation. I am beginning to think that may have been part of the intent ... some sort of ... test."
"We don't like to ask for explanations too much in our organization," Jack observes with a grin. "It so often gets in the way of getting the job done."
"I'll show you how to use calling cards later, Cadena," Treasa says.
"Is there a Renard in your organization?" Brother Cadena asks. "One who looks something like a fox, much as I look like a ... whatever it is I am?"
Mr. Fisher raises an eyebrow. "Several who go by the name. It's a popular name. It suggests someone sly and often dastardly... At least to those who've read the original. There might be someone who's an actual fox. I'd have to check."
Brother Cadena sighs. "I suppose I should have reasoned that it wasn't nearly enough information to go by. A fox. A trickster, with a rapier and a lute. Uses his rapier to cut open portals, and can walk through open space where there's no apparent floor." He checks his own attire, tapping at his chest for some reason, and looking perplexed. "He wore ... archaic-looking attire, very flashy. He might have been red, or perhaps, now that I think of it, brown in color. I'm sorry I never got a last name. We were never properly introduced. It was a fairly awkward encounter, and I'm afraid I was forced to cut it short."
"Plenty of tricksters out there," Treasa notes, and turns her attention to the windows, just to make sure they aren't about to get attacked by pirates or flying saucers or flying spider-monkeys.
"Our organization is a relatively wide-spread one," Mr. Fisher explains. "We have a Switchboard, people who run the Switchboard, who connect those who need a job done... with those who can get the job done. If you can make the grade, you get promoted to bigger and better jobs. If you don't... Well, you're not working for us anymore then. But one thing we don't do is to treat it like a big friendly party, everyone knows everyone else, like the League and their clubs." He lifts an eyebrow at the panther. "We're all about the job. Getting it done. Keeping it secret. Not talking it up and hashing it over endlessly."
"So, your Mr. Renard... Even if we don't know of him directly, we can get a line on him, given a little..." Jack rubs two fingers together. "Incentive."
Cait whispers, "Like we're a debating society and his bunch are the ones that get the job done! Hmf."
Brother Cadena lets out a nervous chuckle at this. "Ah yes. I'm afraid I need to work on my ... wordiness." He shakes his head. "I thank you, but I do not yet have anything to negotiate with and I suspect I will run into Mr. Renard again, soon enough. It's just something about your card's design made me wonder if there was a connection." He carefully tucks the card away.
"Brother Cadena is a Finder," Treasa points out. "I think he'll be able to find this Renard on his own with a little practice."
Whispering back to Cait, Treasa notes, "Well, it does take a bit of discussion to decide which dimension alignments need to be preserved or tipped.."
Brother Cadena shakes his head. "I cannot confirm such a theory," he says. "Just because I am looking for things does not mean I am -" and here he gestures his hands expansively, "- a Finder. I was a bit thrown off, and a little ... er ... overly excited about my reception here."
"Oh really?" Mr. Fisher's eyebrow raises at Treasa. "I hear a few people claim they can find things." He lifts his dagger, though not threateningly aimed at anyone. "And there are a few tools around that can do the job, within a certain range. Like, oh, finding newbies to be introduced to... more diverse options."
"If that is the role," Brother Cadena says, "then I would suspect Mr. Renard of being the Finder."
"In any case, Cadena is still getting his bearings and footing, and doesn't need to be pushed into making any decisions right now," Treasa notes. "Besides, I know from his demeanor which Faction he's best suited for. And no, it doesn't happen to be my Faction, either."
"Please, Lady Truclaw, I don't know if you answered this already and I missed it in the chaos," Brother Cadena asks, "but is there any way to tell what faction someone belongs to, simply by looking at him or her? Mr. Renard claimed he already knew what my faction was, and that this was why no one ever asked me for my choice."
The priest shrugs, gesturing vaguely. "Granted, the 'welcome wagon' that just arrived does seem to make his assertion a little premature."
Jack considers. "Perhaps not, but I just wanted to make sure that your Brother Cadena knows there are other options." He grins. "And if he really is a Finder... Maybe he can find the Map."
Brother Cadena cocks an eyeridge. "The Map? I can sense a proper name in that. Is this another piece of common lore everyone is supposed to know about already?"
"He's got Blessed Light written all over him.. and there are other reasons too," Treasa claims, then lowers her ears at mention of the legendary Map.
Mr. Fisher stands up. "Normally, Brother Cadena, I'd invite you to come by, have a tour of our facilities, give you a grab bag with a few weapons, some useful potions, that sort of thing. But I can sense I'm outstaying my welcome so I'll just bid you a good day..." He tips an invisible hat. "Feel free to stop by, and if you do happen to find the Map, we're willing to offer a lot of money for it."
"I will keep that in mind, good sir," Brother Cadena says, half-bowing, "but I can make no promises. I have not yet sorted out my existing obligations."
With the gangplank cranked up, Mr. Fisher would appear to have no immediate exit from the airship. Instead, he walks down to the bathrooms in the rear. The light flicks from 'Unoccupied to 'Occupied'... And then a few seconds later, back to 'Unoccupied'. The hackles on the back of Cadena's neck and Tracy's hair both prickle at the same time, recognition of the portal that he just opened.
Cait whispers, "Ooh, the nerve of that guy! But is the Map really real?"
Treasa becomes human again when everybody is looking at the bathroom, and takes out her messaging orb. "Well, now that we have a moment of peace," she mutters, and tries to send a message Mike Dexter: "Coming to find you. Trust noone. Don't eat anything. - Tracy." Who knows if he'll actually get it though. "As for the Map, it seems unlikely to exist as an object in the game."
The orb blinks to indicate the message has been saved.
Cadena turns to the panther. "I am terribly sorry for the confusion, and I regret this sudden ... complication in our mission here. I am afraid that ... I don't quite know how to say this, but it appears that I have obligations I was not fully aware of. I shall do my best to alert you if this might in any way compromise my ability to fulfill my obligations to you and ..." He pauses, looking as if some bit of realization has come to him. "Your mother. Yes. Your mother. Your mother was the one who tasked me with ..." He furrows his brow. "I ... What was her name again? This should be something I remember. I mean, I have not forgotten. But ..." His nervous tick twitches again. "I do not know how to explain it."
"Damn, it's your game programming becoming active I bet," Treasa says to Cadena. "My mom's name is Holly, does that help? You may be having trouble remembering or thinking of out-of-character things."
"Holly," Cadena repeats. "That sounds familiar. Not quite right, but - no, I do not mean to question you. Holly." He shakes his head. "When I came to this place, I was supposed to receive instructions. Laws. No, rules. They were ... missing."
"It may be that you've got embedded knowledge for use in the Diadem universe, and coming here has caused some sort of conflict," Treasa notes, then asides to Cait, "See, Cadena is sort of an organic AI. I'm wondering now if maybe your Renard is actually an AI too. Unless you are supposed to be the Map, somehow. I mean, a Finder would need to know the sorts of things that the Map is supposed to offer: where all the portals are and lead to, where places of power are going to show up, and stuff like that."
Cadena shakes his head. "I do not think I ... am able to respond to ..." He squints his eyes, looking pained. "I have a question, but I cannot ... do not know how to ask it. You mentioned ... werewolves are here. I can definitively say that I am not a werewolf. I am not a were-any-sort-of creature. Most people do not get to choose how they appear. I did not choose ... how I appear."
Treasa frowns. "Of course you can choose.. unless you think the character was predefined and just waiting for you to use it?" she asks.
"I am certain of very little," Brother Cadena says. "I am only certain that this place that I have come to ... there are two types of people who come here. I knew somehow that something was wrong, but only upon asking people within this world more have I become more certain that something very definitely was wrong, and still is. I am no Map, and I do not ... I should back up. I am doing you no service at all by chopping it up and getting it all out of order."
"So, when you got here, were you taken to the Hall of Awakening and shown the book, where every page is a different dimension?" Treasa asks.
"Where I was, I simply appeared," Brother Cadena says. "First, there was a word, written or spoken - The Gloaming. Then, there was a starry expanse, and within it, I floated, and a book was before me. The book showed many places, some of which I recognized. I knew that I had a mission, and that I was obligated to find you, Lady Treasa Truclaw. I had trouble remembering - it was either in Old London, where I believed you had a base, or in New Metropolis, where ... I am not sure why it was there I thought you might be, but that was the other location that came to mind."
Cait gives Treasa an odd look from where she's curled up in the hood of Cadena's robes. "Doesn't sound like any greenie intro I've heard of," she says. "The Halls of Awakening don't have just plain stars, at least when I went through, umpty-yeah years ago. Marble tiles, pillars, paintings of places, yeah."
"It seems like.. well, like you're being an Avatar instead of a player," Treasa notes. "You should have been shown the archetypes, and chosen one to be. And there'd be a mirror. Maybe AIs go through something else, and have to be bound somehow to another player?"
Brother Cadena shakes his head. "I saw no such details, and I at least thought that I was unable to move from my place. I appeared there as I do before you now, and I had with me this equipment." He taps at his chest, and the thump hints that there is some sort of armor - but not metal, per se - beneath the apparently archaic robes. "I was given no direction as to my role in this world, nor was I asked for my preference. It should have been one or the other, depending...." He trails off again, then coughs, and continues. "I was not alone for long."
"One or the other, you say," Treasa says. "What were the two choices then?"
"Depending on who I was ... what sort of visitor ... I should have been given a choice ... or I should have been given instructions on my proper behavior," Brother Cadena struggles to say. "There are usually additional rules. It's for ... fairness."
"But the choices.. which type of visitor.. where never explicitly given?" Treasa asks.
"It should have been known," Brother Cadena says. "It is not a secret, if anyone asks."
"Darn it, my kid bro needs me to take him shopping!" Cait whispers to Treasa. "And this was kinda interesting, though if he's RPing it, he totaly needs to learn to jazz it up. Tell me what happened when I get back, okay?"
The faerie curls up to sleep on Treasa's lap.
"Oh, right.. take care, Cait," Treasa says, giving a little wave. She's clearly trying to work out what's going on though.
Brother Cadena shakes his head. "I might be able to explain ... later ... I think ... more clearly. But there was someone there. Someone I know. Someone who I think isn't supposed to be here. Just like I am not supposed to be here."
"Okay, I think there is definitely some wonky AI stuff going on," Treasa notes. "You've got a staff, and armor.. so maybe you're a Sentinel type. You still have control over your VR interface, right?"
"What I see ... is what I see," Brother Cadena says. "There may be senses that others have in this world, things they may perceive. I do not see these things. I am no Map. I have no inherent knowledge of the locations of Portals. I have simply been guided, by waiting, praying, and being tugged this way or that. This is no power of mine, and I thought it was something that all visitors here have - and perhaps they do, but I have simply inadequately described my experience in terms everyone else understands."
"It sounds like.. like you're being treated as a game-controlled character almost," Treasa notes, scratching at her scalp. "Like the system doesn't know how to treat you or something. Maybe I should look up how it handles AI players.."
"There was an entity who was there in the space. He was there, and yet not there," Brother Cadena says, gazing off. "I knew him from before. He had called me a child of Light before. I am not clear on my relationship to him, except that at some time past, I had been obliged to his service. 'Factions strive one against another, an endless quarreling for power. The struggle is its own reason for being, and one must lose for another to gain. How can anything great be built here? Yet perhaps here you may find the answer to my question.'"
"I was obliged to go forth, as his agent, to find an answer, to find out if anything great could be built here," Brother Cadena says. "There was no contract, no deed, no asking, no naming of himself, no naming of any faction, no mention of any enemy. If I had any choice in the matter, it did not seem as if I did at the time."
"Child of the Light," Treasa focuses on. "That's an Avatars reference. The fox was probably a representation of something embedded in the AI part of your mind! Cadena, where did your mind come from, if you know? Was it created by another AI?"
"I cannot answer that question meaningfully," Brother Cadena says, "not here, not now. But I know that I can speak freely of the Light. Of that, I feel no restriction."
Then, the priest contemplates. "I have a feeling that if the fox were to be a representation of something within my soul ... it was not right. He should have looked like something else. But it was he who came next. The quest-giver vanished before I could ask for more direction. I wondered at what to do next, and I felt that something was lacking. I asked aloud if someone might hear me and instruct me further. A door appeared, cut into the sky by a rapier blade, and a fox stepped through, as I described him. He had a knowing expression, though it could have been purely jest, as if I should have known him, but not necessarily that he knew me. He instructed me, telling me to use my staff to guide the way. He also warned me that many factions would be vying for my attention, and that I shouldn't take them seriously - that they were all trifles, and that it's all in fun. With that, he left, and parted through the door. I tried to use the staff to guide me."
"I felt pulled to the book," Brother Cadena says, "but I also felt pulled to that doorway. I recalled my quest, and it occurred to me that the fox might have more to tell me, as it seemed he had assumed just a little too much about my predicament. He said that I was lost, after all, far afield from where I was supposed to be, in the Hall of Dreams. How could I be lost, when I had just arrived? Somehow, I chased after him - and I still do not know how, for there was no floor under me, nothing to push against."
"The Hall of Dreams," Treasa repeats. "See, here, the players are called The Awakened and everyone else.. the game-controlled characters.. are the Dreamers. And being far afield is another big hint that you were designed to work in the Avatars game world. And if this game decided you were an AI, but had bits indicating you weren't a player, uh.. I don't know what it would done. Whoever Renard is, he isn't a player. I couldn't even say if he was being controlled by The Gloaming's AI or an Avatars one, somehow. But you think this is to do with some order my mother may have given to you?"
Brother Cadena shakes his head. "I don't believe this was your mother's intention at all," he says. "I would have received further instructions. But as for Renard ... I caught up to the door in time. I believe it was just a portal, such as any other here, now that I've seen more. On the other side was a mansion - at the time I assumed it was his - and he ... I honestly don't know if he was surprised, but I sensed that I wasn't supposed to go there, by his reckoning. He humored me at first, and seemed uncertain as to whether or not I was Awakened or not. I looked into a mirror, and saw my own face. It concerned me ... but no one else seems to be alarmed, nor was he."
The priest draws back his cowl slightly, looking directly at Treasa. His face is canine, but the fur looks unnaturally orderly, such that fine blue patterns are visible in the fur, clearly spelling out stylized chain links, while a glassy blue bauble is attached somehow to his forehead.
"Hmmm, the colors are the same but your real face doesn't have chain patterns," Treasa notes. "But the game is made to be played by humans, while being able to support shape-shifting, so this compromise form isn't that surprising. Unless.. it's a mask?" She actually reaches out to brush her fingers through Cadena's cheek fur.
The fur feels real enough, and she can feel muscles underneath the cheek as Cadena reflexively twitches. The breath from his nose feels real as well.
"Nope, feels natural," Treasa concludes and sits back down.
The only unreal aspect would be how the fur somehow just falls right back into place despite being disturbed.
"It's not that," Brother Cadena says, shaking his head. "I'm sorry. I'm focusing on trifling things. More importantly, I believe, is what Mr. Renard said. The reason I thought of him when I saw that card is because he declared that he served the Black."
Treasa nearly chokes at that revelation. "The Black? The BLACK?" she sputters.
Brother Cadena winces. "I am reasonably certain about that much. I assumed that had to do with why he drew a sword upon me ... though ... I honestly cannot complete a thought as to why that should make sense. He 'explained' that the reason why I had not been asked about my faction, nor given a choice, was that I serve ... no, that was not his word at all. I feel that I can only say it clearly because he said it."
"He declared," Brother Cadena says, "that I belong to the White."
Behind them, the airliner crew tends to its passengers with efficiency, even panache. Complimentary drinks are served by smiling humans... Or perhaps robots, judging from the strange ear decorations they wear. The cityscape drifts beneath them. Those who take airships are evidently not in a great hurry - if this were an ordinary skybus, they would have been halfway to Florida by now.
"You're a White Cadena, an Avatar of Light," Treasa says. "But.. this all implies that the Avatar's ADs are somehow able to communicate with and influence this world! If portals can be opened from a virtual world to the real one.. then I suppose they can be opened from one virtual realm to another as well. Or maybe it just means you're meant to protect players..."
"The duty of a White Cadena is to protect travelers from predations by monsters," Brother Cadena recites, "particularly from a Black Cadena ... except that it is almost always a losing battle, because the Black Cadena is stronger." He shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I have no idea how relevant that was at all."
"We'd better keep an eye out for those then, although they shouldn't appear here," Treasa notes. "I mean.. well, you shouldn't appear as you do. Something's overridden the normal protocols here - and it sure sounds like it's an AI. Ironically, it's the one that seems to have helped my mother and Jason and Randall before, if I'm remembering the story right. And it's asking you about whether this world was strong enough or whatever is ominous too."
Cadena looks to one side, letting out a sigh, but at least it looks as if the twitching has ceased. "White Cadena and Black Cadena are myths from South America. They are not gods, and I am no avatar of such a creature. I am, however, marked with the appearance of a dog, and the appearance of chains, and so that is the name I was given by the order. If there is a 'black' version of one such as me, there is no particular reason to be concerned. I may have a dog's face, but I do not have the strength or power of any of the beastmen of these domains. If anything, I am Cadena. Perhaps the 'black cadena' here is just a symbol - a recognition of my lack of perfection, of my darker tendencies if left unchecked by goodness."
"What darker tendencies?" Treasa asks. "How can you even have dark tendencies, I mean?"
Cait stirs. "Are we there yet?" the fairy drowsily asks.
"Pride," Cadena says. "Self-centeredness. A rush to anger. Taking offense too easily. 'Dark tendencies' needn't always include ... oh ... murderous tendencies, a predilection for cruelty and ... oh, no, sorry, I don't think we are."
"Those are actual tendencies you have?" Treasa asks, her brow furrowing. "How old are you, Cadena? Aren't I your first.. assignment or whatever?" she asks.
"I have been through places where time is difficult to measure," Cadena says, "so I am not certain how to measure my age. And, I am not certain how to answer your question most meaningfully ... but ... no, I don't believe this was my first assignment." He frowns.
"Cadena.. are you saying you're mind came literally from a White Cadena Avatar with years of experience in the Diadem?" Treasa asks, wide-eyed.
Outside the windows of the Rose of Galilee, what appear to be the Arcadia Towers now looms large before them, replete with advertisements for products familiar in North Bend but rarely seen here. If Tracy weren't aware that the replica was intentional, she would have assumed that outside megacorporations had bought advertising space... But now it occurs to her that they may serve a double purpose, creating similarity.
"No," Brother Cadena says, staring off. "I don't believe I said that."
Cait whispers to Treasa, "He didn't give you a backstory about abusive or murdered parents is there? Or searching for some ultimate answer?"
The priest absently unhitches his restraints, and stands up, gazing at the towers.
"But you can't be clearer," Treasa notes, looking out at the replicated towers. "I wonder what's in my apartment there?" she says aloud. Then realizes Cait is 'awake' again. "No, nothing like that," she assures the faerie.
"Good, 'cause I'd have told you to ditch him and find a boyfriend who doesn't write such a cliche story," Cait says sleepily.
"Next stop, Main and 47th," the captain announces. "All ashore who's going ashore! Please have yer tickets ready."
"He's not my boyfriend, he's.. a family friend!" Treasa insists, as she gets the tickets from her pocket. "Anyway.. I hope the elevators work."
Cait stretches. "A family friend, huh? Is he cute?"
Cadena fishes out his ticket in something of a dazed state, repeatedly looking off and up at the towers, going through the motions as he disembarks. He only snaps out of it when he sees an occasional familiar face amongst the other passengers, exchanging small friendly well-wishes.
"Oh, adorable," Treasa admits with a grin.
Outside, Treasa finally thinks to ask Cadena, "What did you do to open a portal to this place? I mean, specifically?"
"I did just as Mr. Renard instructed me," Brother Cadena says, still gazing off at the towers, "though admittedly I had to fill in a few of the gaps. I felt a tug, and periodically I would make a remark out loud, wondering at where you might be, or I would say a quick prayer, and then the direction would become more clear again. I passed through the mansion, and then through what I think was Old London, through a monastery, and found a wall where I traced a portal, came into an old dusty apartment, and climbed a shaft ... and when I could climb no further, I met you and your friend. That is all there is to it."
The airship docks at a station similar to the one they left an hour ago, but rather than float tubes, there's a standard elevator housing with a sign next to it: "You are now entering the POTEMKIN DISTRICT. This space is privately owned and controlled, and penalties may apply for unrestrained property damage. If you would like to participate, for more information, please see our website..." A hyperlink blinks at the end of the sign.
"So the tug is what triggered it, it sounds like. You'll tell me if you feel another one right?" Treasa asks. "Can you try and pray for finding Mike Dexter?"
"I can try," Brother Cadena says, prying his gaze away, "but there are limits to the specifics. I believe it's tied to the staff, just as for Mr. Renard it's tied to his rapier. He didn't give the impression that there was anything the least bit special about it." With that, however, he unslings the staff and stands it on its end, resting his hands on it, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. "I pray that we might find Mike Dexter, by whatever name he is known in this realm."
"I think definitely a Sentinel archetype," Treasa mutters.
The staff shifts in Cadena's paws... But it doesn't seem as if there's a strong enough pull to be able to track its target.
Brother Cadena sighs. "I do not feel particularly led at the moment. I cannot honestly say whether this should be chalked up to my inexperience, to inadequate faith on my part, to the lack of specifics in whatever name Mike Dexter might be known here by, or whether it requires that he wish to be found."
"Or that the system just doesn't know how to deal with him yet either," Treasa says, and points to the nearby tower. "But for now, we can start in the most likely place; Potemkin!"
Cait looks disappointed. "So who is this Mike Dexter guy?"
"The Hunt's current #1 Target," Treasa notes. "I want to get to him first though, and spirit him away before they can."
"You're messing with the Wild Hunt? That's going to get them so ticked off at you," Cait marvels.
"This Hunt," Brother Cadena asks warily, "is it properly a faction, would you say?"
"Yes, but I specifically want to stop Sasha's group within it," Treasa notes, narrowing her eyes.
The fairy perched on Cadena's shoulder shrugs. "I've known some good Hunters, and some real jerks. The main difference is whether they give you a head start and if they rub it in your nose if they win."
"These guys definitely fall on the jerk-side of the equation," Treasa says, heading for the towers. "They're starting to hunt people in the real world too!"
"What? Isn't that all kinds of illegal?!" says Cait.
"Well, they're jerks," Treasa reminds. "Therefore, I think they should be deprived of their prey. It's karma!"
Brother Cadena nods, casting a wary eye back up to the towers. Then, he forces his gaze away, pulling his cowl down a little further, and picks up the pace to keep up with Lady Truclaw, wherever the way to "Potemkin" may take them.
Cait nods agreement. "Power to the League! Confusion to the Hunt!"
"We are The League of Extraordinary Beings," Treasa notes, with determination. "We bring Balance to the Universe. The Wild Hunt has gone too far, and needs to be brought back into balance no matter how many of their skulls need cracking.."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-01-16-jasons-big-date.htmlMonday, Dec. 2, 2069, 7 PM Eastern
It's been an interesting day for Jason. After finding Tracy's Tower was being assaulted by a group of VR adventurers from the Gloaming, then hacking into the Face Reality server to find out they appeared to be operating out of a base in Southern California, Jason donned his prototype suit for the first time and rushed to rescue Randall after his CERT officer friend was shot down over the Dregs. Sadly, Mav's Mavericks, the gang that had performed several vehicular robberies recently, proved too well ensconced and well armed for a one-man rescue to be practical. With a heavy heart, he vowed to return for Randall.
On top of that, he discovered that some mysterious agency, called Mr. X by Akiko though he has his suspicions, has caused email to him from Akiko to go astray. Normally that would be his top priority to uncover, but today he has a friend in need, and the means to increase his bargaining power: four security robots from Avatars LLC, courtesy of Holly. After he assembled them and beefed up their power and motivator systems, Tracy painted them in Irongrip colors (black and silver, iron glove clenching a hammer) and he then souped up two more with a cyberware upgrade to improve accuracy and fighting ability, then called a Rent-a-Lift to get them to the abandoned G-Motors Repair Center where his meeting with Mr. Desoto would take place.
Now Tracy and Cadena, her bodyguard dog, are in VR looking for the wayward Mike Dexter as well as clues to Face Reality's operations in virtual Potemkin, which may be a gateway onto North Bend, and he is on his way to the most terrifying part of the day...
Armored in a nice jacket recently cleaned with a tie over his shirt, and dress slacks, Jason steps out of Miguel's taxi - "Knock 'em dead, senor! Sure, I wait for you." - and onto the landing pad for this level of the Arcadia Towers. From the outside it looks like a normal anonymous lower level apartment complex.
As a practiced security consultant, Jason takes note of the safeguards. Guards at the entrance, a camera and viewscreen mounted behind them. Weapon scanning gates - not that weapons are illegal, but their bearers need to carry permits. From out here he can see tiny dome cameras mounted on the ceilings at every intersection, the direction of their gaze invisible behind the black glass, and a security robot on patrol.
"Sir, are you a resident of the Sunnydale Apartments, or a visitor?" asks a grizzled-looking old veteran guard as he approaches. His sideburns seem a Southern affectation out of place with his blue cap and uniform. He's clearly armed with a police sidearm on one side, a taser rod on the other.
"Visitor. I've got a gun and vest with me, as I often find myself in dangerous areas of town. I have all the appropriate permits with me, of course," Jason answers as he fishes out his small PDA he uses for notes and the like (as well as all official documents). This takes a small amount of juggling as carrying a small briefcase in addition to a bouquet of lilies tends to take up both hands ... and once again re-enforces the theory that everyone would be better off with three arms. RIU is a long for the ride too, but he's tucked away inside Jason's long coat he currently wears over his dress shirt, tie, and slacks. He can truly answer that yes, it is a dragon in his pocket ... not that he's happy to see someone.
"Very good," Jenkins says, or at least that's how his badge identifies him. "And who are you visiting?" Russells leans boredly on the other side of the entrance.
"Akiko Summers," Jason answers simply.
The guard nods. "Thank you, sir." He taps a phantom keyboard a few times. Rrring! Rrring!
Jason waits patiently, his fingers idly tapping on the plastic wrapped around the flower stems. "Have there been problems here lately that has warranted such security measures?" he asks the other, bored, guard as he moves the flowers idly to hide them behind the small briefcase. "Or is it just preemptive?"
"Well, we're just being extra careful today, sir, after the terrorist attack," Jenkins responds.
"Oh, right. The news this morning," Jason says and nods. "That was crazy."
Akiko's image appears on the monitor. She's redone her makeup, turquoise eyeshadow to match her blue shimmersilk dress and jade earrings, but still looks unfairly beautiful. "Jason! Yes, I'm expecting him, Mr. Jenkins. Would you mind buzzing him through?"
The guard nods. "Right away, Ms. Summers." To Jason, he adds, "I talked to someone who worked up there. Said when he came on the scene, all there were, were piles of some black goo. Just step through the gate, sir, Russells will scan the briefcase."
Akiko in makeup and a dress momentarily resets Jason's brain. "Evening," he says rather lamely to Akiko before his attention is once more hijacked by the guards. "Goo? That's even weirder," he claims as he steps through the gate, then pauses for a moment to let Russells scan the briefcase.
Russells runs it through a conveyor belt and a scanner. "Checks out, Harry," he says to Mr. Jenkins. Harry nods having verified that Jason isn't packing explosives or weapons himself. "Sorry, sir, just a formality. I'll open the door for you, just go in, then you'll want to take the third right."
"Better safe than sorry. The world has gone crazy," Jason offers the two guards as he collects is briefcase, "Thank you and have a good evening." There's a moment where he waits for the door to open, then he steps through. "Third right," he tells himself as he heads down the hallway. "And ... I wonder if I should be paranoid that the guard knew so much about the attacks and about the goo?" he asks himself, and perhaps RIU. "Not everything need be some secret plot, after all." Hm, perhaps the tie is restricting bloodflow to his brain.
At this level, the towers so wide at their bases that the curving hallways are divided into a grid pattern, faintly redolent of household cleaning chemicals. Between the apartment "blocks" (though it's all indoors) are miniature parks with an artificial sunlit sky overhead, faced onto by mini-laundrymats and communal gym facilities/showers. No swimming pools though - you don't get those unless you live Up There.
As Jason approaches, Akiko opens the door and beckons him inside. Her apartment is tastefully decorated with Japanese print-styled wallpaper and tatami mats on the floor, a coffee table and pillows on which one could sit around the table, and a standard video screen on the wall next to it, convenient for watching while sitting cross-legged. To the immediate right is the bathroom, door closed, and the kitchen to its left seems to be rarely used - Akiko must not cook much - though it does have the standard refrigerator, stove and oven, sink, and shelves with a selection of Top Soymen cuisine packs. Privacy screens with inkbrush prints of foxes and mountains block Jason's view of the back which is presumably where she sleeps.
"Come on in, Jason," Akiko says with a smile. Her dress looks to be made of blue silk, but shimmers in ocean wave patterns as if she were wearing the sea.
Jason stands there, blinking. It actually takes him a few seconds to register what Akiko said, in fact. "Oh, ah, right, yes. Doors are for entering," he babbles nervously. It's awkward, but he does fish out the flowers from behind his briefcase and present them to Akiko. "I know this doesn't make up for being so hard to reach and I'm not even sure you like lilies and I'm ... babbling." He must be nervous; he isn't even looking around for hidden cameras!
The room smells of sweet jasmine and tea. It's a far cry from the motor oil and electronic odors of Jason's lab and warehouse domicile. "Oh my God, you brought flowers! Do you know what this means, Jason?" Akiko says with a smile, accepting them.
"That I should have brought a vase too?" Jason asks nervously as he steps inside and now looks around. He's certain he forgot something. And right now he's also feeling poor when he compares all this to his home.
"Oh, no, it means this is a date!" Akiko grins impishly as she sets the lilies down on the table. "Me, little Miss Summers, on a date! I haven't been on one since... Since..." She frowns, then shakes her head.
"It is? I've never been on one," Jason admits as he sets his briefcase by the door. "and you're not exactly little. Er, I mean you're not young, er ... I think I'll stop right there before I say something even dumber." He elbows his jacket lightly in case RIU wants to come out and say hello too.
RIU squeaks! A second later, his head pops out of Jason's jacket, then the rest of him, and then Akiko is laughing as he greets her with a flying hug, his body wrapping around her neck. "Oh, you brought RIU! And Ms. Arcadia makes me feel all kinds of young and little, she's so together and mature."
"I've never met her," Jason admits as he can now shed his jacket. This unfortunately leaves him lookuing a bit bewildered as he tries to find a place to hang it without ruining her decor. "I feel like if I touch anything in here I'll ruin it. You've done so much to decorate this place," he admits. So, he folds up his coat and just sets it by his briefcase near the door. After resisting the urge to comb his fingers through his hair (since he actually bothered to actually comb it out and style it today), he says, "You look amazing. In just four years you've recovered from everything and become very successful. You endured the worst of what happened ... and turned out better than the rest of us. Wow."
Akiko, patting RIU's head, laughs. "Oh, you! I owe it all to Ms. Arcadia, really. I was just doing temp work after they discharged me from the hospital, and then she called me in to replace her secretary when she was out on maternity leave, and she decided to keep me around after that. She's taught me so much! And she got me into these apartments."
"Does she know much about, well, what happened?" Jason asks as he closes the door behind him finally.
"No, as far as she knows, I was one of those injured after the... Incident," Akiko says, tilting her head toward Jason thoughtfully. "I don't think she knows what happened. I do know she's been after that dataset from Avatar LLC because it contains her father's work, and she had a white dog guarding her daughter for a while, who was supposed to be some kind of Avatar product. Her daughter died earlier this year though, and the dog went back to Avatar. It was a lingering illness... Something about a genetic weapon. Ms. Arcadia was so devastated after that. And angry." She looks sad.
"Yes, about that data. Holly called me earlier today and demanded to know if I was the one who logged into the old quantum core today and crashed it. Someone actually obliterated the data set, or so Holly claimed. Or, well, something. I'm not sure it was a person; I don't know of many people who could break into a system like that. There are really strange things at work again," Jason admits, frowning slightly that a potentially happy evening has already grown a bit dark.
"It was destroyed?! Oh, Ms. Arcadia won't be happy about that at all," Akiko says, frowning. "But why would anyone go to the trouble? It was just a mock-up of how Arcadia was going to be built over North Bend."
"Well, if it was destroyed. The crash could have been cover for someone copying the data. The timing, along with that raid on the towers, is too close together to be coincidence. ," Jason notes and shrugs. "I honestly don't know any more than that, though. I wasn't involved; I haven't seen that system in four years. And ... hm, do we have to talk about depressing things? It's been four years since we've really spoken. Surely one of us have had happy things in-between?"
Zen techno, assuming that's what's playing, is a weird layering of shamisen music with a techno beat.
Akiko smiles. "You sound like you haven't had any happy things happen to you... At all? Is that because it's been too quiet and you're at your best in the middle of problems?" She gently lifts RIU back up onto Jason's shoulder, then reaches up to one of the thin shelves near the door and brings down what looks like a white ceramic fox, though Jason can see a line running around the neck. A container, then. "Do you have somewhere to put this?"
"I'm not sure I have a best anything," he admits. His attention quickly goes to the odd urn and that causes his brow to dance for a second. "It might fit in my briefcase," Jason says as he goes to fetch the briefcase by the door. "Ah, if I am allowed to ask ... why the fox-shaped urn? That seems ... it probably has a mythology reference?"
Akiko grins impishly. "No, I just like foxes. And you always reminded me of one."
Ding! "Akiko, you have an incoming phone call," says a cartoon fox on her video screen.
"Me? I lack any sort of grace or style," Jason admits with a laugh as he returns with his briefcase. He finds a clear counter and enters the code to release its latches, then opens it. For the moment Jason is actually hiding behind the lid of the case, in case the call is someone who might not want to see him there.
Akiko says, "You're sly, though!" She nods to the screen, "Accept call, please."
Inari appears on the screen. There's no mistaking the golden vixen's face, but the background behind her is that of a public bathroom, and white noise plays over the speaker. "What's going on, Akiko?" she asks. "I've only got ten, maybe fifteen minutes before they get suspicious."
"Um... I was supposed to pass on a warning..." Akiko glances toward Jason.
Jason twitches from the sound of Inari's voice and peeks around the edge of his briefcase. He waves around the lid, then peeks over it and says a bit nervously, "Ah, hello Inari. The warning is from me. Uhm, well ... things are getting complicated again. Someone has restarted the VR experiments with world merging ... and also have begun targeting anyone involved with the events four years ago. I'm fairly certain we're all on the list..."
"Jason!" Inari looks surprised, but pleased for a moment before Jason begins his warning. "Was that you posting those mystery comments on my site?"
Akiko gives Jason a look. What sort of look, it's impossible to say.
Jason grins a bit sheepishly. "You know me; always the shadow in the background," he claims as his answer. "Mystery makes things more interesting."
"Did you know they're calling you the Phantom Commenter now?" Inari says with a laugh. "But what is this bull about 'failing me'? You gave me a chance to live, and I took it. It's not your fault I just chose..." She glances to the side. "I had no idea there could be such a thing as too much attention."
Akiko stirs, then gathers RIU up and starts patting him. RIU scrabbles at Jason's shoulders briefly before realizing it's Akiko and going with the flow.
"Two comments and I got a nickname?" Jason actually asks, "That's ... even I'm not that much of a conspiracy nut. And as for too much attention, you could always quit. But ... maybe attention is what keeps you safe right now. A group already went after Holly's daughter. Another ... has taken Randall."
"Quit? Have you read the termination clause? They get to fake my suicide and then I have to live in hiding like a witness protection program so I don't interfere with the story they're making out of my life," Inari says angrily. "But what-- Randall-- is Holly's daughter... Tracy, right? Is she, are they okay?"
Akiko squeaks. Randall's kidnapping is evidently news to her.
"Contracts can be modified," Jason notes, shrugging. "Tracy is fine; she's, well, hiding in my bunker, more or less. Randall is ... not as fine. He's being held by a gang. I've located their base and I have .. well, not great plans, but plans, on rescuing him. Frankly, dangerous plans ... but being one person doesn't give me a lot of options."
Inari frowns. Her vulpine eyes study Jason intently, with laser-like focus. "You don't have to do everything by yourself, you know. I could be out there in five hours..."
Akiko is giving Jason another Look.
"With all your cameras and entourage? Until Randall is safe I have to keep things quiet and everyone guessing," Jason says and rubs his temples finally. "And besides, if you came here, I would expect you to spend time with Akiko, not some crazy guy who lives in the slums."
"You're not a-- well, okay, you are a crazy guy who lives out in the middle of nowhere," Inari says with a smirk. "But Randall was... Is a friend to me too. Do you really want me to go nuts wondering if you just added yourself to some punk's notches on his gun? As for the entourage, well, surely the great Jason can come up with something to shut the cameras down, if I can ditch the live posse."
"I've prepared a few things that would make it a bit hard for me to end up a notch on a gun. I always have at least two plans ready," Jason claims, "And I really didn't want to drag either of you back into this." At that he motions to Akiko and Inari before continuing, "You have both made new, successful, lives. It's just ... it's wrong for me to ask either of you to ruin that. I can't stop you from coming, of course. I just ... it's hard to explain."
Akiko sighs. "You are so very, very, very White Knight," she says, rubbing under RIU's chin as it purrs. "I can handle a gun, but I know that I would get in the way. Inari though..."
"I'm still a sly fox, with her little bag of tricks," Inari claims with a smirk. "See you at the airport in five hours, Jason?"
Jason groans and rubs his face. "I never win," he complains, "You're just going to give Tracy bad ideas, too. This is going to be really dangerous and ... fine, midnight."
Inari winks. "With bells on!" She clicks the call off. The white noise sussurus vanishes.
Akiko leans onto Jason's side, holding his arm. "Oh God," she says. "She's coming."
"Are you going to yell at me now?" Jason asks Akiko as he stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks at the floor. "I didn't mention Randall earlier because it's been four years and I wanted ... well, one night of fun and normalcy before everything. Inari's right in a way, I could be dead by morning. But ... what can I do? Randall is my friend; I can't give up on him. I have to try. I just didn't want anyone else hurt in the process."
Akiko shakes her head and presses her cheek against Jason's shoulder. "It's just... I feel so useless," she says. "I don't have magic computer skills like you, I'm not athletic and good with illusions like Inari, I'm not in charge of a big company like Holly. And she's coming and all I can do is to cheer her on. And you. And pray that you get out okay, and Randall'll be safe, and..."
"You're wrong, you know," Jason says as his weight shifts a bit as he continues to look at the floor. "About being useless. We all have various skills, yes, but you gave us a reason to use them. Inari protected you back then, she exists because of you. We all worked together to save you. It wasn't because you were useless; it's because you inspired all of us. You endured, survived and have now succeeded. Don't underestimate what it means to be that for people. It's what kept us going even when it seemed hopeless. You're the anchor; not less than any of us - you held us together before, and after, everything. Where would any of us be without that?" He never looked up through that; maybe not having to look at someone made it easier to be honest. He even takes a small risk and slips his arm lightly around Akiko's wait and hugs her to his side quietly.
Akiko smiles a little. "Thanks, Jason." She hugs Jason back, leaning on him for a silent moment, then says at last. "If there's anything I can do..." Her eyes fall on the video screen showing the time. "Oh no! Did you make reservations? Are we late?"
"No, there's still time. I made them a little at the Zen Garden restaurant up in the spires at a later hour later since I figured you would want to talk some before we went," Jason admits, seemingly oddly reluctant to let Akiko go at the moment. "And since I also expect you to come to the airport to greet your counterpart, you're going to be out late as it turns out. So a later meal works out, right?"
Akiko relaxes, leaning up against Jason in his arms. Then realizes what she's doing, and squeaks. "Um, sorry, I didn't mean to... It just felt..." She looks up at him blushing and letting him go. "That's fine! Um. Will I be driving the getaway car then?"
"Getaway cab? I don't own a car," Jason admits as he looks a bit embarrassed himself. His thoughts return to the urn and that at least helps make things feel a little less awkward. "So, ah, about the urn, did the clone ever ... wake up? It's hard to believe there's a copy of me inside that."
"Well, if you hire a taxi, the driver will talk, so it's better to rent a car, or to buy one anonymously. More plausible deniability for everyone," Akiko points out. She switches the video screen to live mirror mode and touches up her makeup, looking a bit embarrassed. Then shivers as he switches subjects. "I don't want to know what kind of testing they did. They claimed he was just a vat clone. An object. They said he never woke up, that it was a mercy."
"I'm honestly not sure I believe that," Jason admits as he gingerly carries the urn to his suitcase and packs it inside. "But that may just be me being paranoid. Given how he was created ... I suspect that maybe he intrigued them and they wanted to keep him. And so ... faked his destruction. But then I've also been called crazy. And I guess we can rent a car at the airport."
Akiko nods, "What about the cameras? Are you going to just... Hack them somehow? I've heard they're really hardline on security, otherwise, well, you know how some people are about wanting to get up close to their stars."
The urn appears completely innocuous.
Jason has this sudden mental image of Inari in the shower. He nearly drops his briefcase! Recovering, he closes it up and secures the latches. "Do you know what models they are? I'll have to try and break them, so knowing their models will help. The simplest solution would be for them to just repeat-play some events, mixing them up so as to not be too noticeable." he suggests.
"They're, um... Amaranth Eye of the Beholder orbs, or something," Akiko recalls, voice distant as she tries to recall. "You can see them sometimes, when one camera gets a view of the other ones." She sits in front of her videoscreen and pulls up some of Inari's past public appearances. "But aren't the fans going to catch on pretty quick if they're watching?"
"Possibly. I could just have them register some sort of a fault. Technical difficulty, that sort of thing. Make it look like some super crazed fan hacked them and did it," Jason suggests. "Inari has had boyfriends, correct? One of them would probably be suspected..."
Akiko sniffs disdainfully. "If you can call those pieces of street trash 'boyfriends'. I call them 'boy-nacles'." She pulls up a picture of a camera bot and cross-references - as much as she claims to be ineffectual, she seems to be handy with search engines, at the least - and then sends the data to Jason's PDA.
"Were they just for the appearance of the show, or did she actually, er, like them?" Jason asks as he brings up the pictures of the security bots to get an idea of what model they are.
"The last one was a Zachary Barkowitz... At first she thought they were, y'know, really honestly liking her, until she caught one rehearsing his lines," Akiko says as she digs up a bio of the latest boyfriend, the one who went for an unexpected flight from an aircar. "Then she realized what people wanted. They didn't want to see real romance. They wanted drama."
"I now understand why she threw that one out of the car," Jason admits, "I would laugh, but ... I expect that actually hurt her to discover that it was all rigged."
Akiko touches Jason's hand. "Her first boyfriend... He looked a lot like you. Long brown hair. Tough on the outside, sensitive look in his eyes. Stop laughing! She ditched him when he wanted her to quit and start a family, and couldn't understand why she didn't want to have a child... Or adopt."
"I admit I was wondering what they thought of how she looked. The whole, not human, thing," Jason admits as he studiously looks through his PDA. "And I guess it sounds like that one was being serious, not a story hire."
"No, that's the thing," Akiko says, looking serious. "I looked him up... They made up his whole character. He didn't exist before he met Inari, and he dropped out of sight after they split up."
Akiko adds, "And as far as anyone's concerned, she's a human... With some serious gene mod surgery. They don't know... She doesn't know if she can ever have a child."
Jason blinks a few times. "Then that doesn't explain why he looked like me," he remarks and looks up from his PDA. "Were you able to get his real name? Or even his virtual one? As for her having a child, I don't know if that is possible, either."
"He was supposedly 'Brian Montagne', and well, she was surrounded by guys who wanted to get close to her," Akiko says. "I guess she picked the one that..." She gives Jason a significant look. "You don't even realize she liked you, do you?"
"Kimon, do a search on a Brian Montagne, please. As he relates to Inari," Jason thinks to his implant and his home-connection. He blinks, focusing back on where he is now and says, "I always new she considered me a friend. Well, after we got over trying to kill each other..."
Kimon's voice responds to Jason, confirming Akiko's story. Brian Montagne was evidently a rising young actor on a subscription-based sci-fi thriller, his first appearance in the public eye, but said thriller was cancelled after he was dropped by Inari. Present whereabouts, unknown. Educational record and past work, falsified.
"Send me the last known photos of him," Jason instructs the computer. He then pauses to rub his forehead a bit. "Did Inari running off to become a crazy star happen because of me?" he asks Akiko.
"Well, Randall was... Is the good looking one," Akiko admits, trying not to speak of Randall in the past tense as she puts the lilies into an improvised pot. "But he was so busy trying to be the captain, that he didn't want to play favorites, and risk throwing a wrench into things on the ship. And I think you must have made an impression on Inari back when, because I saw her looking your way a lot, on the Ozymandias. Studying you."
Akiko coughs. "I don't think she intended for it to be 'crazy star'... Just plain 'star'! But she wanted what you wanted for us, and what I wanted too. To be successful, on our own."
"Well, she could have been trying to decide the best way to kill me," Jason points out in reference to being studied on the ship. "And ... well, even if it turned out to be crazy star, at least both of you did become successful on your own. I'm sorry that it came at the coust of the closeness you two had, though."
"Oh, she considered that from time to time," Akiko says with a laugh as Jason mentions killing. Then sighs. "I'm jealous of how much Inari has done, really. I'm going to be in her shadow again when she gets here. But she's right, if Randall did get kidnapped by a group like you said, you're going to need all the help you can get. And she's built a career on being dangerous... Or looking dangerous."
Kimon attaches a photo of Brian Montagne. The man does look like Jason. He doesn't have any of the more recent scars though, those acquired in the Avatars LLC adventure, and he seems a bit more handsome, tanned and polished in clothes. Suave. Sharp, like a knife.
"You will not be in her shadow," Jason insists and shakes his head. He goes to grab his coat by the front door now while instructing, "Kimon, do a wire frame comparison between his facial structure and build to mine. I have an long shot suspicion." "And just like how you're the one going to dinner tonight, not her," he adds out loud.
"I wish I were going on the rescue too, but... I can't picture me being other than in the way," Akiko says. She kisses Jason's cheek.
"Besides, you'll just have to see me get shot if you did," Jason admits as he opens the door for Akiko. Of course it's only afterward the kiss registers and his legs wobble.
Kimon chimes. "Working... 96% match," it assesses. "Slight differences found." A graphic of the differences appear - facial structure, mainly. Someone looking at Brian Montagne and Jason side by side would suspect they were brothers, or even identical twins. Or maybe an illustration of the story about the prince who swaps places with a peasant who looks like him...
If anything, the difference map suggests to Jason minor cosmetic surgery... Stubbled chin a bit more defined, thinner face, things he'd have done if he wanted to look more like a movie star.
"Okay, that's worrying," Jason remarks as he fetches RIU and lets him crawl back into his jacket, then grabs his suitcase and closes the door behind himself and Akiko. In a rare act of politeness, he even offers his arm to Akiko should she wish to take it, now holding his suitcase in his right hand. "I just had my home system run a comparison check between myself and Inari's first ... it's a 96% match. Remember when I said I think my 'clone' lived?"
Akiko takes Jason's arm as if it were completely natural. "But if he's alive... Whose ashes are those in my urn?"
RIU snuggles back around Jason's waist again.
"That is a good question. I have no idea ... and I'll have to track down where they came from. Looks like the company that claimed to incinerate him needs a little virtual visiting, if you catch my drift," Jason notes as the pair heads down the hallway together. "This does make me glad of one thing ... he was different enough hat no one has ever come up to me and asked me if I was Inari's former boyfriend."
Akiko wrinkles her nose. "When was the last time you went out and gave anyone the opportunity to ask?" she points out.
"Oh sure, burst my fantasy like that," Jason mock-complains. He even sticks out his tongue at Akiko afterward. "Four years of heads-down work on a project hasn't exactly made me social, no."
Akiko giggles. "You weren't social before... The perfect target for a murder, Inari said, because no one would notice you were gone for at least a year. You were always head down in the engine room."
Jason actually laughs at that. "So you really meant it when you said she was planning to kill me," he remarks, shaking his head. "I always had RIU watching my back, though. He could take down anyone!"
Akiko says defending Inari, "In fairness, she and I had just come from a world where we had to plot all the time! I think by then it was just a reflex... She wasn't really going to kill you." She wrinkles her nose. "Scare you a bit, maybe! Kitsunes love their jokes, you know."
RIU peeps from inside Jason's jacket.
"Scaring me could have been done by threatening to kiss me," Jason points out, "I've seen her teeth." He then nods, remembering something. "One more thing you should know," he adds, "The outfit that hired the thugs to grab Randall was Irongrip. So ... stay away from them."
Akiko nods. "Ms. Arcadia calls them 'jumped up thugs in jackboots'. They came by trying to sell us on their services... She wasn't impressed."
The Zen Garden turns out to be a restaurant set in a large greenery area, with a lake beneath a painted background of sunset sky -- no, wait, the clouds are moving, so it must be a virtual sky. It looks like an old style Japanese teahouse on the outside. The kimono-garbed waitress ushers them into a waiting room, and a minute later, from there into their own private sitting room with pillows around a low table. The paper screen walls do a suspiciously good job of shielding them from the noise of the restaurant's main area.
Miguel winks as he bids Jason a goodbye. "You have a good evening with the lovely senorita now, you hear?" The taxi floats away.
Akiko blushes.
"Cab drivers are really strange," Jason claims as he tries to defuse the Cabby's comment and peers at the holograms. He hears his bank account whine, but ... even the condemned deserve a good last meal. "I also wonder if it was Brian that made sure I never got any messages from you. Making sure I was 'out of the picture'. Hm."
"So the nefarious Mr. X has a name now?" Akiko asks. The holographic sun and lake outside look amazingly real, down to the smells of water and the trees. A koi curves through the waters.
"My possible clone; Brian," Jason answers. "It's creepy to think there is another me running around out there. One that has been cuddly with a very dangerous superstar. What if he was better than me at everything? I now have something to live up to. That's just ... horrible!"
Akiko curls up on the pillows, looking pretty as she takes in the ambiance... Though hers is more that of a delicate flower than Inari's katana-like sleek beauty. The waitress bows as she enters, then sets down green tea and their first course, fried gyoza each served individually on its own platter with a green onion curled around it like a tail, two dots of dipping sauce on the side like punctuation.
"Maybe he's got something to prove," Akiko says.
Jason and Akiko each have three gyozas... While they appear identical at first, they turn out to contain different things: the leftmost one contains a mix of scrambled eggs and some kind of fancy ham, the middle one has a slice of lap cheong sausage in a bed of minced pork and cabbage, and the right one has a filling of caramelized sugar and chopped peanuts.
"That he's his own person and not just a copy?" Jason asks as he settles himself down on a pillow in not nearly as graceful a fashion as Akiko did. "I hope that he's not involved in the current things, then. I can ... forgive past actions but I don't really want to have to fight myself at some point," he admits. All his years of eating Chinese takeout has at least earned him some moderate level of skill with chopsticks, so he actually uses them to pick up one of the gyoza and actually offers to feed it to Akiko.
It looks precarious, like it might fall any minute... But Akiko looks first surprised, then leans up, mouth open, and as Jason releases it, she snaps it up and then blinks as she realizes it's the sweet one. "Mm! This is different. But good," she says.
Being less confident about her ability to handle chopsticks quite as deftly, Akiko offers Jason one in return, holding the tiny plate out. "But no... I mean, maybe he wants to prove he's better than you."
"I'm well known for being different," Jason claims and decides to not tempt fate again with such an experiment and instead just takes one from the offered plate. So, now he tries his own and chews thoughtfully. "Maybe," he agrees after he swallows, "It doesn't take much to be better than me. He's already been a star for a short time. That's more than I've done. Well, outside of helping save the world back then ... but I never really claimed any credit for that."
Akiko shakes her head. "Well, what can you to top saving the world? I don't know... But if this Brian wasn't just someone Voya hired, if he really is your clone, he won't just have been idle all this time, will he?"
"Might be part of the Face Reality group, the one Sasha is helping," Jason offers, then shrugs a bit. "As for what you could do, is destroy the world. I guess one advantage I have over him is, well, he was a clone of me at an earlier age. Less experience."
Akiko blinks. "But... Why would you want to destroy the world? Who are you going to brag to afterward?" Blush. "Oh, not you you. The other you."
"Right. Undo whatever the other did. Maybe that's also why he went after Inari," Jason suggests before taking a sip from his tea. "The irony there being ... he got closer to her than I ever did."
The waitress comes in to take away the plates and bring in more bite-sized dishes. Miniature noodles with Kobe beef and asparagus, with really thin noodles and micro asparagus; tempura vegetables, again with tiny versions of the vegetables, so one could eat an entire head of cauliflower in a single bite, and what looks at first like a normal-sized pork tonkatsu on a bed of rice... Except that on cutting it, it's actually thin layers of pork with layers of some other sauce.
Akiko shakes her head. "If he had been more patient, he might have won Inari's heart too," she says sadly. "She was really torn by her decision. She loved him, but she couldn't give up her career too. She didn't want to be just his wife."
"We used to do a lot of bathroom talking, back when," Akiko admits.
"This place is ... it puts my sandwiches to shame," Jason admits as he explores his food as much as he does eat it. "I'm also not one who can really give any sort of advice on wooing anyone," he admits, "It just always seemed to me is that if you cared for someone you never forced them to do anything. Let them shine and do not stand in their way; if they come back to you, then it was meant to be. If they don't ... it wasn't. It sounds good, but I have no idea if it really works or not."
"That's a good approach," Akiko says smiling. She looks over at Jason beneath long hair - how she gets it to stay out of her face like that instead of feathering into a million strands, he can't be sure, but suspects a very good hair stylist. "But sometimes you have to let them know... You're interested. Or they think you don't call them because you aren't."
"Easier said than done," Jason admits. "Everything sounds so .. fake when I rehearse it in my mind. And when I consider I don't exactly have much to offer it's..." He shrugs slightly and takes another sip from his tea. "Easier to just bury in a project with intentions of calling when you can think of the right thing to say, then weeks and months pass. Honestly, anyone can do better than me. I'm a borderline criminal given the things I deal with and work in. Dig in my past enough you'll find out I was a criminal once. How could someone as beautiful as you or Inari ever really want that?"
The waitress brings in more courses: individual palm-sized okonomiyakis, egg-flour pancakes with a topping of shredded duck covered in some savory sauce, whole baby fish wrapped with rice sushi-fashion, drizzled in vinegar, and takoyaki, or baby octopus battered and fried whole. This last one gives Akiko pause as she recalls... tentacles past.
"Raw, hm," Jason remarks as he stares at the alien-looking food before them. Still, he can't look like a wimp in front of someone ... he actually tries bits of each of the rolls and even the fried octopus. Better than you eat them, than they eat you, he figures.
"I'm not beautiful!" Akiko says. "Not like Inari! I guess... If anything, Ms. Arcadia taught me how to dress up well, that's all. And we spent years being criminals in our own ways, too. Supervillains! But not a single one of our plots ever succeeded..." She pauses, then looks curious. "What kind of criminal were you? I mean, you know all about what we did, but I never heard what you did."
Akiko nibbles on the okonomiyaki, using her chopsticks to roll it up and then nibbling it like a canape. "This is ruining me for Top Soymen," she says.
"Please. You're both beautiful. You reflect each other, elegance and danger. You're grace and flow, she's fire and fear," Jason remarks and waves his chopsticks. "As for what I did. Plenty of things I never got caught for, some things I did. Corporate spying for a time, stealing secrets from one corporation for another and getting paid for it. Broke into a few military systems way back, before they started putting up Quantum ICE systems. Never really did anything bad with that, more pranks. Like when I replaced the orders of two hundred pair of BVD underwear for the marines with an order for two hundred bright pink bikinis. I do wish I could have seen the Quartermaster's face with that one. Finally got caught over some invasive attacks on Dantech way back; it's how I ended up in the Hospital. You know what happened there. Afterward I was put on trial and I had to plead. Either I would have spent the rest of my life in jail, or I could do some 'black ops' for the Government and they
would delete my files and leave me be. I helped deal with some cyber warfare against a few minor despots and when it was deemed 'paid in full' they erased my files as agreed. Afterward I opened my own security company. After seeing what the Government gets up to, I figured everyone might benefit from understanding what risk they were at."
Akiko blushes at Jason's compliment, and then looks surprised, even impressed. "A real desperado! But if Brian is a copy of you from the hospital... Would he remember any of that?" She pauses. "Or if it was a government program that did that to you, maybe he wound up in their hands. Doing black ops for them."
"Depends on if memories were copied," Jason notes, "Which of that I have no idea. As for if he ended up ... again, no idea. I stayed far away from all of that. I don't exactly want to be in those claws again. I went legitimate. Well, mostly. I still end up in trouble because I try to help people. Tracy has helped get me into a mess with the same group that grabbed Randall. The only good thing from that was it gave me a hook to lead them into a trap."
More courses. Eight-grain rice with a variety of toppings which the waitress claims are shark derived, supposedly a horrifically bad meat - but which has been cooked with apricots to completely change its flavor and odor. Slivers of raw Kobe beef, marinaded in something sweet. And for the dessert, a fried banana... except this is no ordinary fried banana; it's been sculpted somehow into the appearance of a golden-hulled ship, with sugar wafer sails, on a "sea" of ice cream. Akiko's eyes get huge at this last. "Omigod I can't eat that... It's so pretty!"
Akiko inquires about Jason's plans for the trap as well, but all the food is blunting her curiousity a bit, which is probably good for Jason's sanity.
"Wow, now that is showing off," Jason has to admit at the carved banana-ship. "And if you don't eat it, the ice cream will melt ... and you might offend the chef. Do you really want someone who can carve that well mad at you?" As for the plans, he's vague about it; and definitely leaves the part out about he might be shot during it as part of a mis-direction. "Do you think Inari would be mad if only you picked her up?" he asks, "I never said where the ambush will be and ..."
Akiko gives Jason the spoon. "Here! Take the first bite, then I won't feel so bad about digging in," she says, smiling. "And if you try to leave Inari out of it, I think she'd follow through on some of those plans to kill you."
Jason has no qualms about digging into the banana and ice cream and eating a large bite. "You said you and her used to talk," he notes and offers back the spoon, "I probably shouldn't ask ... but was any of it about me?"
Akiko pauses, then smiles impishly at Jason. "Which of us you were going to call first. But does leaving mysterious comments on her site count as a call?" She takes a bite of banana, crispy batter, and ice cream.
"Was she mad I never did?" Jason asks, "And I'm not sure if a comment counts."
Akiko shakes her head, "It got hard to tell. One day you're waiting for the call... The next day you realize he's not going to call. And then you figure out what you're going to do after that, because you're going to be doing it by yourself. That was when we stopped talking so much, because we were trying to fill in our lives."
"I'm sorry," Jason says as his attention shifts back to the slowly being devoured dessert. "I wanted to call, but I wanted you two to get your lives in order, then it just became easier to not as time went on. Always was a reason, well excuse. You're happy, you don't need reminders, and on, and on."
She looks at the dimming sky. Even though it's only a hologram, perhaps it's meant as a subconscious reminder that the meal is drawing to a close. The waitress, of course, does nothing so gauche as bringing in a bill. Jason will be getting that as an email. Instead, she inquires gently if there's anything else the gentleman and the lady would like.
"And of course, Mr. X... Brian... had a little something to do with it," Akiko admits, smiling at Jason. "But we're having a date. I think I win that race!"
"I'm fine, but if there is anything at all she wants, please get it for her," Jason tells the waitress. There's a pause as he ponders for a moment about the upcoming evening, airport included. "On second thought, bring me a small hot sake. I may need the fortification later."
"Even without his involvement," Jason then adds, "I should have called you and Inari. I was just afraid to, I guess."
The waitress smiles. "Of course, sir." She bows deeply and backs away. Before long she brings a heated bottle of sake and a shallow dish for Jason, a small cup of a different kind of tea for Akiko. This one smells strongly of jasmine.
Akiko shakes her head. "I can promise I don't bite," she teases Jason. "But Inari might!"
Jason carefully pours out a bit of the sake into the masu. He lifts it, sniffs, then has to comment, "I do hope I can find my feet after this." A wry grin and a long drink later, he sets the wooden dish back down. "And thank you for bringing up memories of those dreams," he complains at Akiko. "I think I had a month of dreams of being hunted by her in the remains of our old ship. I always lost, then woke up right before her teeth ..." He pours another cup!
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-01-23-potemkin.htmlMonday, December 2, 2069 - 6 PM
"We are The League of Extraordinary Beings," Treasa says with determination. "We bring Balance to the Universe. The Wild Hunt has gone too far, and needs to be brought back into balance no matter how many of their skulls need cracking."
Bold words, but with Cadena's ability to find Mike Dexter curiously obstructed, the three towers that comprise Potemkin loom over the adventurers. Somewhere in there should be the Face Reality staging grounds, where they might even now be preparing their next strike. Or searching for their wayward hacker, whose time is running out as virtual molecules replace his real body. Cait looks up at the skyscrapers, then sweeps a hand toward Treasa, giving her a raised eyebrow as if to say wordlessly, Lead the way, boss!
On the outer edges, it seems similar to Metropolis - they did just get dropped off by the Rose of Galilee, after all - but as they descend, it's as if they've crossed into the real world, and only occasional sightings of werewolves, heavily armed mercenaries in London steampunk attire, and vampires strutting about in full Renaissance attire remind them that they're still in the Gloaming. They check taco stands and Duamutef's Donuts in search of anyone who's seen Mike Dexter, and keep their senses alert for active portals, but their search seems fruitless...
Until they hit the ground floor, when a street vendor nods at their description of the man. "Yeah, poor kid looked lost," the old Irish man says. "Gave him an extra taco for the road." And an extra slice of doom, but it's not the vendor's fault.
Cadena is able to pick up Mike Dexter's trail this time... But it leads into the open streets. In Metropolis, this would be practically a death sentence - that's where the Underpeople live, mutated homeless people that feed on flesh when they can get it. But here in Potemkin, he just might have a chance, if they copied the fortified and patrolled suburbs as well as the towers themselves.
Overhead a carriage thunders, drawn by winged horses. "That's so not North Bend," Cait comments as they walk down what seems like a typical street, lined by shops and apartment buildings. Wait, up ahead - are those crunching noises from the alley?
Treasa slips on her brass knuckles and draws her knife, then gestures for the others to get up against the wall, so they'll see whatever or whoever leaves the alley before being seen.. unless the noise maker just peeks around the corner, that is.
Brother Cadena quietly takes in a breath and presses up against the wall - checking to make sure his staff is at the ready.
The noises die away, to be replaced by what sounds like rummaging, and metal and plastic things bouncing off the pavement.
Putting a finger to her lips to indicate silence, Treasa sneaks up towards the corner so she can peek into the alley.
As Treasa peeks around the corner, she sees three hunched over humanoid figures, searching through the remains of a large metal garbage can, which used to be locked against raccoons and similar pests. Evidently it doesn't hold up to these guys.
One of the trashpickers crows with glee as he fishes up a half-empty bottle of mayonnaise. The others grab for it as well! They fall into grabbing and wrestling at one another, showing diseased-looking green skin and yellow, decaying teeth.
Backing back onto the street, Tracy motions to the others to just sneak past the alley, and leads the way while the creatures are occupied with one another.
The little faerie flits overhead, keeping to the overhang.
Brother Cadena takes up the rear, ears perked and eyes cautiously scanning around and occasionally up, in case of other surprises.
Cadena's staff leads them on through the suburbs, but they move more warily now that they know this area isn't entirely free of the many threats that the Gloamings sprinkles in to keep players on their toes. They pass several other packs of Underpeople... And then up ahead, they hear a voice yelling. "Hey! My food! Back off, jerks, get your own!"
"That sounds promising," Treasa notes, and hurries towards the commotion.
Brother Cadena picks up his pace as well, rushing toward the sound. "It sounds a rather naive reaction to the locals, given what I've heard so far."
Cait mutters, "You didn't tell me this guy you were following was an idiot!"
"He's just.. new," Treasa claims. "It's complicated."
As they come up on the alleyway, they can see six of the distinctively green-tinged Underpeople, and behind them, a slightly built blonde man, his pseudo-leather jacket and pants torn and ripped. That must be the elusive Mike Dexter.
While the Underpeople are focused on Mike, Treasa dashes across to take position on the opposite side of the alley.
Crinkle! An already-crushed plastic can rustles under Brother Cadena's foot as he hurries forward after Treasa and Cait. Several of them turn to face him. "Meat," one says. Another agrees, "Dog meat! Mmm, mmm, goooood."
The others lurch toward Mike Dexter as he hugs his Duamutef's Donuts bag protectively against his chest.
The two Underpeople that have advanced toward him reach out with long gangly arms, trying to grasp him... Presumably so that they can then feast upon his still living flesh!
Brother Cadena interposes his staff between himself and the grasping hands. "Mike Dexter!" he cries out. "Please don't risk your life for those pastries! We are here to help you - so please abandon them and keep yourself safe! We will try to distract these miscreants and meet up with you at first opportunity!"
"Doooggy," one Underpeople croons as he tries to reach around Cadena's staff.
"But-- but--" The wayward hacker looks torn. The lumbering undead coming straight for him do make a compelling case for Cadena's argument.
"You shouldn't eat the food in here anyway Mike!" Treasa calls out, and tries to shift into her panther form. She didn't want to scare Mike with it, in case he'd already encountered Moonlight.. but Underpeople aren't likely to run from just a girl.
Leather turns to skin as Treasa's trenchcoat wraps around her, sprouting black fur as she the girl falls forwards onto her hands. But they aren't hands anymore, but feline paws. Big ones, with claws that look more like talons. Her panther form is bigger than normal, looking more like something long extinct with bulked up shoulders and massive, long-toothed jaws. She charges down the alley towards the quartet of Underpeople, roaring as she goes!
"It is ... (grf) ... with regret ... (ngh) ... I must use force if you ... (nk) ... continue hostilities!" Brother Cadena lurches back, pulling his staff free. He then swings it into the midsection of the first of the Underpeople assaulting him (making a quick and perhaps arbitrary judgement of which one seemed the most intent upon violence at the time).
Whap! The green-skinned man roars at the impact, but seems only pained rather than put out of action.
"Cait, take care of Cadena!" Treasa calls to her companion as she runs past.
The faerie darts a look toward Treasa as she shifts, then at Cadena being attacked by two Underpeople. She draws her rapier, a slender dagger-sized stiletto glyphed in glowing blue, and creeps up upon the nearest one, preparing a deadly strike.
Stab! The Underperson howls in pain as the rapier jabs in and out, leaving crackling blue energy writhing around the wound.
He clutches at his side. "Someone hit me! I don't like it when someone hit me!"
Mike Dexter makes a decision... He flings the bag at the zombies and runs headlong!
The bag lofts over the head of the Underpeople, causing several of them (drooling) to watch it skittering in Treasa's direction.
Cait follows up her rapier strike with a deadly slash!
The strike lands true! Blue fire lashes through the Underperson, which proves to be too much for his already pain-addled senses. He goes down in a heap.
Mike, for his part, beats feet, not waiting to see if his donuts ploy worked.
A terrible clattering fills the alleys as Mike trips over one of the security-locked garbage cans. "Ow! FROTZ IT!"
The remaining Underperson on Cadena glances over at his fallen comrade... Then grins hugely. "MORE DOGGY FOR ME!"
He gropes at the air where Cadena was just a second ago - but fortunately, the dog's bodyguard trainers have taught him how to elude such a slow attack.
In the meantime three of the Underpeople have turned to the donut bag and are now grabbing at it, reducing it to shreds as they scrabble after the delicious soy-based pastries... But the fourth continues after Mike himself, seeing no opening in his comrades' barrier of flailing body limbs.
Figuring the donuts will keep the three scavengers busy for now, Treasa tries to just run past them to chase the one that is still following Mike!
Brother Cadena brings his staff crashing down on the Underperson's exposed back. "No, sir," he says, "no doggy for you."
WHACK! The Underperson thuds to the ground under Cadena's mighty strike. "Ooh... Pretty stars," he says staring into empty space.
Brother Cadena calls out, "Miss Cait! We must reach Mike Dexter before the others do!" And with that, he bolts down the street.
Cait looks up. "Right with you!" she says, springing into the air after him.
"No, wait!" whines the Underperson that Cadena struck down. He struggles to his feet. "Doggy, don't leeeave me!"
Between them, the three underpeople gathered around the donut bags demolish it, jamming huge hunks of nearly-as-tasty-as-real-flour pastries into their mouth. "Ungh... Mmm... So good." But one of them is still in hot pursuit of Mike. "Come back... Meeeat."
Mike screams, as he's only a few steps away from this slavering monstrosity.
Brother Cadena, too busy to spare a moment of pity for the poor, poor cannibal, bolts for the street intersection, hoping to cut around and intercept Mike Davis and his pursuers without having to brave the faux-donut feeding frenzy.
With a burst of speed, Treasa rounds the corner and bolts for the Underperson pursuing Mike, managing to get next to it before taking a claw-swipe at it!
Cait calls to Cadena as she flits close behind, "You're pretty fast for a dog in robes!"
Mike screams as he flees.
SLASH Blood gouts into the air as the panther's immense claws rip through the Underperson. He crashes into the ground, clearly out cold.
"AHHH! GIANT CAT!" yells Mike.
With her target down, Treasa lets her monster-form fade back into her 'normal' panther shape. "Mike!" she murrowls, "Are you hurt? It's me, Tracy from before. I'm here to keep you safe."
"Tracy? Since when are you a cat?" complains Mike, but at least he slows down a bit, backpedaling instead of fleeing headlong.
"You're in The Gloaming," Treasa reminds, padding up to Mike. "You were a werewolf this morning - in the real world."
The Underpeople break into a run as they see their prey fleeing!
Brother Cadena comes running around the corner from a side street, looking back to Cait, but seeing that she's keeping up with him easily.
Mike backpedals, crossing the dividing lane of the street and reflexively looking both ways. "I was deceived!" he protests. "They told me it was just a game! That we'd just be waking people up!"
Cait darts toward Mike but from above, where he's not looking, intent on sticking close to their quarry before he runs off.
Green-tinged Underpeople lurch toward their prey, hurrying their pace!
Grotesquely, two of them actually glance toward the fallen body. Could they be considering consuming their own?
"It was very brave the way you shut them down," Treasa calls. "Especially when you tasered Sasha!" She stops at the corner, turning to keep a watchful eye on the Underpeople.
Brother Cadena sees Cait flit off, but quickly loses track of her in the gloom. His ears perk as he hears Treasa's voice, but also the lurching cannibal still pursuing him. He quickly presses himself against the wall, just around the corner so that the edge is within his staff's reach.
"How'd you know about that?!" exclaims Mike, put on edge again. "You're with them, aren't you? Here to bring me back?"
"Jason hacked in and got the security footage," Treasa notes. "We're here to get you out. Soon as these guys stop following us, we can try to get ahold of your brother. He must have built a secure or secret room somewhere in Potemkin.."
Mike backs up, until he's against the wall of the brownstone apartment behind him.
As Mike looks around desperately, trying to find a clear path, the faerie flies over his head and looks at Tracy, as if wondering if she should put Mike out cold and save them a great deal of arguing.
The Underpeople lurch after their live and fleeing prey! More meat for later, presumably, beats some (poor quality) meat now.
"Just make sure nothing gets to him, Cait," Treasa calls to the fae, as she growls in warning at the lurching lunatics.
The Underperson rounds the corner... Right into the waiting Cadena's clutches! He attempts to grapple with the dog, moaning, "Miiine..."
The panther growls... Hack! Ack! Cough. Hairball! The Underpeople are undeterred; one takes a wild swing at her.
Brother Cadena makes a sweep with his staff for the kneecaps, knocking the running Underperson onto his face into the pavement. "On the contrary, I already seem to have several claims on my ownership. You'll just have to wait your turn like everyone else, I suppose."
Fortuituously, it misses.
Since her growl didn't work, Treasa resorts to a more physical approach, and slashes at the Underperson who is first in line.
The Underperson looks unphased as the claws rip through its clothes, exposing its decaying greenish flesh. "Bad cat!" he growls. "Naughty!"
Cait hovers near Mike's cheek. "Don't run off, dearie," she says. "We went to a lot of trouble to find you, and I'm going to be really ticked if I have to track you down again." She darts toward Treasa, who looks like she's about to be mobbed by Underpeople.
The three surviving Underpeople gather around the cat. "Cat... Foood," one suggests. The other agrees. "Tasty mew mew."
They grab at the cat... But she proves just elusive enough to be able to avoid them, though she loses a bit of hair to the last one's grab.
Treasa growls and hisses, then slashes back at her first tormentor!
Sweat beads on Mike's forehead as he watches the Underpeople surround the cat. "What a day," he moans. "What. A. Day."
Brother Cadena spares a moment, staff at the ready, in case his pursuer suddenly leaps up to resume the attack ... but as the attack fails to come, and the sounds of combat at the alley mouth remind him of the other enemies, he turns about and dashes down the street.
"Heeheehee! Tickles," says the Underperson as her claws, less lengthy since she's no longer monstered out, fail to do more than scrape his skin.
"Get off her, you morons!" yells Cait as she charges into the fray. Her rapier gleams silver with streaks of blue light as she strikes.
The strike doesn't look like much, a pinprick, but it's as if the Underperson was jolted by a taser as he convulses. "ARGH! It burns, make it stop burrrrning!"
Mike looks around for something, anything, he can use as a weapon. Just in case things don't go well for his unlikely rescuers.
"Joining in from behind!" Brother Cadena warns his allies, just to make sure he doesn't earn any reflexive swipes by surprising someone inadvertently. With that, he readies his staff....
... slamming the metal headpiece of his staff right into the Underperson's midsection, and exploiting the opening made by the diminutive fairy's rapier attack.
CRUNCH Bones shatter. He goes flying! The remaining two underpeople are given pause by the ferocity at which their comrade was eliminated.
One of the Underpeople flees, trying to withdraw into the shadows! The other one gamely sticks it through, trying to grab at least a handful of tasty, tasty cat.
With just one harasser to contend with now.. Treasa of course attacks! It's a matter of panther pride!
SLASH! Third try's the charm. The Underperson stares at the slashes left in his belly by Treasa's bloodied claws, and then collapses. "Bad... Kitty... Stay... Outside..."
Mike, breathing hard, holds a rock that he looks prepared to throw at any attackers. Except that it looks like all the Underpersons are down or fleeing.
Brother Cadena does a quick check to ensure that there are no gaping wounds on Treasa, and that the blood on her is not her own, and then he turns toward Mike. "Are you injured? I am trained in the healing arts, if you have been hurt by these miscreants or whatever else you've run into down here."
"So, why did we want this guy again?" whispers Cait to Tracy. "You said he was the Wild Hunt's numero uno target."
Mike appears uninjured, except for bruises and scrapes, presumably from his earlier misadventures.
Brother Cadena, seeing the state of decay of this place and ample evidence of the ultimate progress of infection as witnessed in the Underpeople, promptly digs out his first aid kit, serious injuries or no.
"Ack! Werewolf!" Mike says, noticing Cadena's muzzle poking out of his robes.
"I assure you," Brother Cadena says, "I am no werewolf. Please, there is no need to panic."
After returning to her human form, Treasa digs out her communication orb. "It's complicated, but we have to get him to a certain portal," she tells her friend, then tries to raise Aldestre on the orb.
The stray hacker eyes Cadena warily. "You sure look like one. Prove it, turn into... Aw, no, if you turned into a human, that'd prove you were a werewolf, and if you were trying to convince me you weren't, you wouldn't." He sighs and puts the rock down. "'sides, I'm all tuckered out and those jerks ate my lunch. Which you told me to throw away! Not that I'm blaming you, I guess it was my lunch or me, and I'd pick me any day."
The orb flickers between glowing and darkened states, showing it's attempting to reach Aldestre.
Brother Cadena cautiously approaches, first aid kit at the ready, pulling out some disinfectant to treat the wounds. "I have no ability to turn into anything. I apologize for my freakish appearance, but I mean you no harm. I cannot say the same, however, for whoever might find us here, so once we have a look at these scratches and make sure they're not infected, we had best move along. A few whacks with a stick are not likely to keep all of these ruffians down indefinitely."
"How much have you eaten already, Mark?" Treasa asks as she heads off, hoping Adam connects soon. "And more importantly, when you went to your first meeting, did you step through a door into a mall area or something else that shouldn't have been there?"
Mike looks up from where Cadena is treating his cuts. "Only had a taco, it didn't agree with me. And how'd you know that? It was crazy, totally not the way they brought us in," he confirms. "Like they completely rebuilt everything outside when we weren't looking! 'Cept I didn't hear any construction noises."
Brother Cadena quietly finishes checking Mike's scratches, applying a bit of disinfectant here, and giving him a bandage there. "All right then. You seem to have come through this reasonably well," he says, and then he packs away his supplies and stows the first aid kit. He spares a cautious glance back to the fallen ruffians.
"You said you'd had a bad taco in your message to your brother Adam," Treasa notes. "Please tell you me barfed it up? You want as little of this world's matter inside of you as possible. And could you recognize the area you were brought through if you saw it again?"
As Cadena watches, the flow of blood from Treasa's tormentor stops. The wound is healing by itself! The Underperson twitches.
"Let us make haste!" Brother Cadena says with urgency. "These people are unnaturally resilient!" He moves to help Mike back up onto his feet.
Mike nods. "Threw the rest away after I horked it up, figured I got a bad batch. Uh..." He looks up at next skyscraper over. "I dunno, I was concentrating on-- hey, what's the matter?"
A grizzled-looking short-haired man with an eyepatch appears in Treasa's orb, with one of the Potemkin towers behind him. "Aldestre," he identifies himself. "Treasa? What's the news? I've been out looking for Mike."
"If we don't move on," Brother Cadena says, "we're going to have to deal with hungry, hostile scavengers all over again."
"I've got him right here!" Treasa says, bringing the orb and standing next to Mike, unsure if that will actually let Adam see him or not. "We're on the ground. Please tell me you have a secure room somewhere in Potemkin we can bring him to? Keep in mind there will be Hunters after him."
"Yeah, count me out of that," Mike agrees as he scrambles to his feet. He looks around for an escape route.
"If you are experiencing any stomach ailments as a result of the local food," Brother Cadena says, "I may have some treatments for that."
"Don't give him anything like that, Cadena; it'll make him sick later," Tracy notes.
Aldestre's visible eye widens. "Oh my God, Mike! I'll be right there," he says. "Can you give me a beacon?"
Treasa makes the arcane inscription on the nearby wall with the orb to send the beacon.
"Got it, on my way," Aldestre says.
"We are in hostile territory, Underpeople rezzing around us - so come in force if possible!" Treasa says before the connection breaks.
"Fascinating," Brother Cadena observes, watching the inscription process.
"Cait, can you hide us at all?" Treasa then asks the sprite.
Mike says nervously, "That sounded like my brother, but since when did he turn into a Captain Hawk wanna-be and wear an eyepatch?"
"You sound as disoriented as I was upon coming to this world," Brother Cadena says sympathetically. "I can't say my reception was any friendlier, either."
"It's just his game face," Treasa notes. "Like Yappy... unless you've seen him before and his Avatar doesn't look like that?" she then asks, just in case the link had been intercepted somehow.
Cait peeks out of Mike's jacket pocket with lint on her hair. "This guy's got NOTHING," she informs Treasa gravely. "Not even a knife! Um, sure, take us thataway. To the park!"
"Okay, let's move," Treasa says, ushering Mike and Cadena in the indicated direction.
Mike shakes his head, "I don't pay much attention to his games. I know he's a Believer, but really, that's just crazy... talk..." He pauses. "Okay, maybe he is onto something."
Brother Cadena looks mildly confused as he examines Mike's face. "Pardon me, but have we perchance met before?"
"Pretty sure I'd remember-- hey! What're you doing in my pocket," Mike complains as he tries to fish Cait out. She hides with a giggle.
"Careful!" Brother Cadena warns. "She looks fairly small and delicate. Not a toy."
"You met on the landing platform outside the restaurant," Treasa reminds Cadena. "He's Mr. Cheap Flycycle, remember?"
The two Underpeople nearby stir. They roll over, eyes to the ground temporarily as they try to find their footing. Still, just a bit more time and Treasa and her friends will be away and safely out of sight.
Mike leaves off of trying to extricate Cait. "Hey, it's all I could afford," he says defensively as he jogs after the cat-turned-human.
Brother Cadena blinks at Treasa, looking completely confused, but his attention is quickly diverted by the sight of the Underpeople rising. He draws his staff again, and takes a defensive stance, putting himself between the underdwellers and his companions.
"Just keep moving," Tracy says to Cadena, frowning that he's falling so deeply into his virtual role. Sure, he's probably made for that, but it's still worrying.
At the park, Cait gets out of Mike's pocket voluntarily, then sets up what looks like a net of magic. The space between the lines of force shimmers, then becomes a projection of grass, shielding them from the view of the Underpeople milling around.
"Okay, hopefully Adam and his Explorers will find us before someone else," Treasa notes. "Then we just need to get Mike someplace safe, scope out the likely portal zone.. and.. uh.." She trails off, since she has no idea how a portal is triggered, only the signs to look for. But if Sasha was using that one regularly - she hopes - then maybe it's a 'fixed' portal or one that opens up regularly.
The orb shows Aldestre's proximity. It grows brighter, brighter... And there he is, handling what looks like a gondola, except with wings and nacelles on each side to provide lift and thrust. A flame-winged hawk wings down and then scouts around the park in circles, searching for Treasa and Mike... And whooshes right over them. Cait giggles.
"He's got a vehicle?" Treasa boggles, then steps out from beneath Cait's camouflage to wave it down.
Mike's stomach grumbles. "I hope wherever we're going has food," he mutters.
Brother Cadena looks a bit hesitant at the sight of a flaming bird. The flying gondola seems to cause him hardly any consternation by comparison. "How long has it been since you stumbled into this place?" he asks Mike.
"Sorry, you can't eat anything in here safely," Tracy warns. "Not if you want to get back to the real world in one piece."
"Ahoy!" Aldestre calls to Treasa. He raises his hand and whistles, calling Kyriel to perch on his falconer's gauntlet. "Where's Mike?"
From outside, it looks to Tracy as if there's just grass next to them. Cait's illusions are eerily good.
"Right here, hidden," Treasa answers, and looks around to see if anyone or anything else is lurking. "You've got a safe place for him?"
Aldestre nods. "There's a League chapter we've been using as our base when we were building this place," he says. "Not exactly secret, but at least it'll be safe."
Mike shakes his head to Cadena, fishing out his PDA to check. "Not long... Um. Half a day maybe? Feels like forever though!"
"It'll have to do until we can find a real-world portal," Treasa says, waving for Adam to land. "How many people have you got available? We'll need to secure any portal we find on this side, along with the path to it."
Aldestre sets the sky-bark down by Treasa. "People?! Um. Eight if I call the guys in. They were just talking about where to eat. Time zone difference," he reminds her.
Brother Cadena nods to Mike, and then frowns, regarding his staff. He bows his head in prayer, holding onto the staff, and whispers a short prayer, adding, "I seek a portal to take Mike Dexter back to where he was, before coming to this realm."
"Wait.. Cadena, look for one to take him home, not where he came from," Treasa urges. "Dropping him back into Sasha's lap is not what we want to do.."
Sparks of magic shimmer, rising from the earth to float around his staff.
Brother Cadena nods, and tries again. "A correction. Instead, I must find a portal that will take him back home."
While the divination goes on, Treasa tries to hand her trenchcoat to Mike. "See if you can wear this, it's like armor and will keep you from standing out too much."
The sparks shift. More appear out of nowhere, and then more, and... FOOM! The tip of Cadena's staff is now brightly glowing, too bright to look at directly. Cait's illusion vanishes, or perhaps the magic that made it has been conscripted to a higher purpose.
"Wow," Mike says looking at Cadena's ritual and missing the trenchcoat being handed to him.
The staff blazes, unleashing a line of raw magical energy! It arcs into the distance, between two of the Potemkin Towers, straight through buildings, though it appears purely visual: there's no burning or destruction caused by the beam's contact with material objects.
Aldestre looks startled. "What's this?" he says urgently to Treasa. "Whatever it is, we'd better get loaded up, fast."
Brother Cadena continues to pray, at last raising his face to gaze off to follow the line, and opening his eyes. "I believe we should go ... that way."
"That looks promising!" Treasa notes. "Everyone in the boat, and follow that line!" she declares, and pushes Mike towards the craft to get him going.
As soon as everyone is aboard, Aldestre lifts the skybark up. Mike clings to the brass rail.
The skybark whooshes up through the air, following the staff's gleaming trail to the apparent destination, an anonymous mall... But as Treasa and Cadena look around, they notice that Aldestre appears to have a follower: a highly polished black wooden carriage, drawn by a team of six winged horses.
"Tell me you know who that is following us, Aldestre," Tracy says, trying to see if the carriage has any telltale markings.
Brother Cadena spares a look, but notices that Treasa seems to have already spotted it as well. He remains at the fore of the ship, kneeling, staff in hand, praying in the hopes of keeping "on the trail."
Aldestre peers around. "I haven't any notion, but the beam of light is rather attention-getting," he theorizes.
More flying vehicles appear on the horizon. Fighter crafts, giant dirigibles, hippogriffins and wyverns - though not like Mara at all in that they appear completely reptiline - it's a race's worth of mounts and vehicles, all heading on an intercept course for Aldestre's skybark. "This looks bad," he says. "Hold on!"
Treasa twitches, recalling the playback of events from her mother's adventure. "We don't have any silly string or giant space squids," she mutters. Louder, she says, "If you can call in any reinforcements, now would be a good time."
"Someone take the helm," Aldestre urges, looking for anyone willing to step up.
Since her skills are all melee-based, Treasa takes over flying. She doesn't have anything to offer if it comes to aerial combat! "Mike, watch your PDA! Tell me as soon as you get any sort of carrier signal," she tells the blond man.
An armored woman on a large horse in barding sounds her horn. Taran-tara! "Tally ho!" she yells, swooping down toward the skybark. "I name Mike of house Dexter the prey of the Wild Hunt! Elude us and we shall grant a boon! But fail, and you will be ours 'til the sun rises."
Mike sweats. "Wild Hunt what? Hey, I'm one of you guys!" he yells. His PDA is out though it's still showing No Carrier.
"No way, I claimed him first!" Treasa calls out. "He's under the protection of the League!" To Mike, she says, "Have you got a signal monitor on that? We should see some EM interference as we get close."
"Then let the League protect him, if it dares to try," the woman calls back, laughing.
Aldestre has the blank look of the AFK.
"Cait, see if you can raise Irielle for some support?" Treasa asks her friend. "I don't think Cadena knows how to use the orbs yet, and he's sort of concentrating.."
Cait clings to Treasa's shoulder. "This looks bad," she says. "Fake right, I'll throw a decoy." She gets out a seed and prepares to throw it. "Irielle-who? Oh, that angel? Did you get her number?"
Brother Cadena, while still praying and holding the staff with one hand, digs into his robes and pulls forth a black card with the other, holding it out.
Treasa jinks right as requested. "Just her name.. or we can call the Shadows.." she suggests, wondering how much it'd cost for safe passage. "I wish I had some more contacts or clout here, but it's not like being Tracer of House Trudeau carries any water in The Gloaming!"
Cait flings the seed to the right... And in a few seconds, it inflates into an image of their own skybark that mirrors their actions! As Treasa pulls left, it veers away to the right, drawing away some of the Wild Hunt.
Brother Cadena prays furiously, begging for a less overt means of showing him the way to the portal, so that he might better protect Mike Dexter from those who seek him.
The light mutes considerably. It still glows, but at least now it only extends a few feet away, as opposed to being an immense ray of light calling their attention out to everyone around.
Brother Cadena breathes out a prayerful thank-you, as he keeps concentrating on the lead.
The skybark zooms just over the buildings, and the VR mall is coming up fast. If Cadena has it right, wherever his staff is pointing should be in there.
Treasa also has to focus more on the shortened line as she steers the craft.. and looks for a landing place. "How many are still following us?" she asks Cait.
The flying carriage draws up close, pulling ahead, and for a heartstopping moment Treasa veers the wrong way, so that they thump heavily against its side. The door pops open and a flaming skull-headed man in Victorian finery prepares to jump out-- but then she pulls away, just in the nick of time.
Lord Skull, or at least that's a convenient nickname, shrieks in rage. He draws an archaic dueling pistol and takes aim at Treasa.
One of Cadena's eyes opens at just that moment, and he cries out, "No!" The chain markings on his face writhe briefly, but nothing more interesting than that comes of it.
BANG! The gun cracks, but the shot goes wild.
Lord Skull scowls, the flames wreathing his skull-face contorting to supply the expression that the fleshless skull alone might lack.
Treasa turns and glares for a moment at Lord Skull. "I'm worth a lot more than Mike, you know," she tells him, then makes a gesture that the game blurs out before taking more evasive action. "Hold onto your stomachs!" she warns.
Cait clings to Treasa's neck!
Brother Cadena braces himself, trying to keep as close as he can to Mike and Treasa, just in case.
As Aldestre snaps back to alertness, the skybark lurches and dives wildly! "WHOA!" He grabs for hold of a railing.
"This is worse than my driving test!" Treasa complains, hoping Adam will take over now that he's back.
Despite the lurching as the skybark slews wildly, Aldestre manages to keep his feet and relieve Treasa at the helm! "They're on their way now," he reports. "Just hope we can hold out!"
"If it comes to it, I might be able to draw them off," Treasa claims. "The bounty on me is ridiculous."
As more Wild Hunt vehicles and mounts close in, Aldestre tries to pull them out - but to no avail. Even halved by Cait's decoy, there are still enough of them to bracket the skybark. The armored woman laughs again as she takes the forward position, her mount treading air tirelessly next to them. "Surrender Mike, and the rest of you may go," she says.
"Can't do that, he's a real person and we have to get him out," Treasa calls back.
Brother Cadena tries tapping the black card he's holding against the staff, pressing it to his forehead, blowing on it, turning it over in his hands ... all with no discernible result.
As Cadena stares into the black card, its depths seem to shimmer... It's as if it were a picture of some bottomless pit. If he had enough time, he might be able to get it to work.
Aldestre launches Kyriel into the air toward the woman. "Fan of Feathers!" he yells.
KaTHWOOM! Phantasmal flaming feathers fly in the air, bursting in a cone shape toward the armored woman!
"ARGH!" Dazzling feathers burst against her helmet, blinding her, and her mount rears up as more feathers snap and crackle and burn against its barding-exposed hide. She peels off with unexpected speed, trying to get her steed back under control. "You'll pay for that, mongrel!"
Mike calls, "Go get 'em, birdy!" Aldestre gives him a look. "Her name is Kyriel, not 'Birdy'," he says with infinite patience.
Kyriel dances in the air around the skybark, trying to interpose herself between it and the Wild Hunt vehicles, but still it seems like thye're drastically outnumbered.
"Damn, I miss Fuselli," Treasa mutters with a pang of nostalgia for her old flying nightmare. She then focuses on the mall ahead. "Mike, getting a signal yet?"
Brother Cadena sighs and at last cries out, "I pray, can someone please assist me with this card? If it offers any chance of help, I have no clue as to how it works!"
Mike looks down at his PDA. "Nah. Still nada!" He punches a few buttons, having to use willpower to focus on it rather than the imminent threat.
"Give it here," Tracy asks, since she's the only one with attention to spare. She holds her hand out for the card.
Brother Cadena obligingly rises enough to hand the card over to Lady Treasa Truclaw.
Cait fishes out another seed. "Feint left, then dive," she says to Aldestre as she gets it ready.
Taking out her orb, Treasa touches the card to it. "Through shadows I call to you, Jack Fisher," she intones. "Now's your chance to really impress me."
More vehicles come into view, hovering over the mall. There are several skybarks like Aldestre's own, and a longer sky-yacht with sails of shimmery light, and behind them, a giant balloon that carries what looks like a multi-armed construction robot of some kind.
The orb shades into mist and then Jack Fisher's face appears, calculatedly average looking and hard to pick out of a crowd. "Lady Truclaw. What may I do for you?"
Brother Cadena sights the collection of vehicles, but doesn't look terribly surprised - just resigned. After all, that brilliant white "rainbow" had two ends.
Treasa rotates the orb around to give Jack an idea of the situation. "I've got a person that I absolutely have to get safely to a very special portal," she explains. "And the entire dimension seems to be after us, as the Hunt has targeted him. Can you arrange to clear a path for us? I'd be really grateful."
Aldestre swerves the skybark, and Cait launches her second decoy. The Wild Hunt is halved once again... Though the previous decoy seems to have fizzled, so that their numbers are coming about to rejoin them. "Hang on," he yells as he takes them down low, so low that they're all but scraping the street beneath.
"There'll be a fee for that of course," Jack Fisher says, looking not at all surprised. "One hundred thousand gold."
Brother Cadena just shakes his head and sighs upon hearing the amount of the fee.
"I don't have that much," Treasa says, gritting her teeth. "But my real name is Tracy Trudeau, and I'm worth a 10 million gold bounty to the Wild Hunt. Check their forum channel. You'll also be saving someone's life, literally, and giving the Hunt a huge wedgy."
The carriage comes down low for another shot at them... Too low. Its wheels jounce and clatter against the asphalt sending sparks in every direction.
Jack Fisher's eyebrows go up. "I see. Well, then, you and your delightful friend Cadena shall owe me one, shall we say?" His eyes go toward Cadena.
"A favor, certainly.. but not allegiance," Treasa notes, watching for low-hanging signs or other obstacles to duck as they race through the mall.
Above the Wild Hunt, a giant armored dirigible follows the proceedings with interest, painted space black with skullbones painted upon its sides. Just what they needed, pirates.
The dirigibles parked over the mall float in their direction. Tiny specks of light suggest magic of some kind.
"And you, Brother Cadena? Do you agree you will owe me a favor for this favor?" Mr. Fisher prompts.
Lord Skull gnashes his teeth - especially obvious with no lips to get in the way - and pulls his carriage up back into the sky. He tries to draw a bead on the skybark.
"That is fair," Brother Cadena says, startled to realize that he's part of this conversation. "If I can find you treasure or relics or other such valuable things, I shall endeavor to do so. But please be warned - it seems that sometimes there are ... unfortunate side effects, as we have just discovered."
"We have a deal then," Jack says.
"I'm going to assume you already know where we are and where we're going, if you've got agents in Metropolis," Treasa says into the orb.
The chain markings on Cadena's face shift again, but, again, nothing comes of it save for a seemingly random and gratuitous display.
"Of course," Jack says with a smile. He calls to someone out of the field of his vision, "Open fire."
And with that... The pirate dirigible's cannons open fire on the Wild Hunt.
"Now that's sneaky," Treasa has to admit in awe. "I figured the Shadows would be mostly Ninjas.."
Aldestre pushes the throttle full open. "Let's get moving while they're distracted," he says in a low tone of voice to the others. As a stray round crashes into a building, causing it to creak alarmingly, he adds, "And before they totally wreck this place!"
"Mike, how's the phone looking?" Treasa asks. "Any bars yet?"
Brother Cadena flinches at the explosions and creaking, folding back his sensitive ears, but still keeping primarily focused on the path to the portal.
It turns out to be Aldestre's friends in the skybarks and sky-yacht! They take up escort positions, more Avatars like Kyriel deployed to screen them.
Mike peers. "That's weird. No signal... Getting a lotta EMF noise though." He points toward the mall. "Comin' from up ahead!"
"That's good!" Treasa says, no longer worried about plowing into a dead end. "Let's hope Sasha's crew isn't sitting on it. Soon as we can get a signal, I'll call my mom - she should be able to get some security and medics to pick you up on the other side and keep you safe."
The Wild Hunt swarms around the pirate dirigible, distracted from their pursuit. Tiny flyers fall from the sky, rendered indistinct by distance.
Brother Cadena cringes at the carnage. "I sincerely hope we have not oversold my ability to deliver them something to be worth all of this."
"It's not like the Shadows will be picking up the tab for repairs," Treasa points out, watching the way ahead for obstacles of the armed or spellcasting variety.
They settle onto the top of the mall and make their way past generic shop fronts to what appears to be yet another Duamutef's Donuts in the food court. The staff's beam points unerringly to what looks like a blank wall... But the EMF noise is off the scale. Treasa's and Aldestre's senses are both telling them that the potential for a portal is strong here - but whenever they try to envision where it will go, they can see only an endless tunnel, disappearing into infinity.
"Think we should try to open it ourselves?" Treasa asks Aldestre. "I'm not sure how this works..."
Brother Cadena says, "I believe I have the idea of how it works, though I hope I have not overly taxed my powers by this point."
Cait flits about and then orders a donut hole - one - from the counter jockey.
Mike's stomach rumbles, but then he checks his PDA. "Hey! There's a weak signal," he says. "I have HOW many messages?"
"Well, you've got the link to a higher intelligence, so I'll go with whatever your idea is, Cadena," Treasa notes, then blinks at Mike. "Hand it over, I need to try and get through to my mother so we have some support on the other side."
Aldestre shakes his head. "I'll defer to Cadena," he says. "I'd hate to screw it up and have Mike romping through yet another Gloaming world."
The canine cleric approaches the wall as indicated, and taps the staff testingly against the surface - then begins repeating the process he saw performed by a certain strange friend/enemy what seems now to him like ages ago, tracing out a doorway with the tip of the staff.
A line of light follows his staff tip!
Mike holds the PDA out, but his eyes are fixed on the display as if it were his last lifeline to a place called reality.
Tracy takes it and quickly taps out her mother's emergency number. "C'mon, mom, we need the cavalry.." she mutters.
Blit! The call comes through but the video is shot through with static, a sure indication that the signal is badly degraded. "Who's Mike-- who are you?" Holly says peering at the image. This may be the first time she's ever seen Treasa Truclaw.
Holly adds accusingly, "And what are you doing on my emergency line?"
Once the door is finished, Brother Cadena peers over at the device. "She sounds familiar. That ... is that your mother, Treasa?"
"Mom, it's me, Tracy," Treasa rattles off. "I'm calling from inside the Gloaming, next to a synecdoche that Cadena is trying to open. It'll be a Duamutef's Donuts in one of the tower food courts - maybe the same one that opened this morning. I've got Mike Dexter! We need security and a medic and probably a sandwich or something for him.. please tell me you can trace this signal!"
Donut hole in her mouth, Cait quickly weaves an illusion to screen them from the sight of the Duamutef's Donuts customers and employees!
"Tracy! Oh my God, what has Jason done to you?!" Holly peers at a side panel. "Stay on the line! I'll have a medevac on the way!"
A rectangular outline of light now shimmers in the wall.
Treasa hands the PDA back to Mike for now, saying, "Don't hang up." Then she turns her attention to the outline in the wall. "What next, Cadena?" she asks.
Brother Cadena returns his attention to the portal, and testingly taps it lightly with the staff.
It creaks open... Onto what looks like an identical mall, except that this one is dark and smells of dust and mold.
Aldestre winces. "Gods above, that portal's loud!"
Brother Cadena looks curiously at the realm beyond. "I suppose that this does not literally take us to his home?"
"What the.." Tracy says in surprise. "Wait.. Mike, when you stepped Yappy through into the real world, what did it look like to you?" she asks.
Distant thunder and explosions shake the mall floor. It sounds like the Wild Hunt is on its way... But the pirate dirigible is still in the fight.
Brother Cadena says, "Quickly - Mike Dexter. Let us put something through the portal that you brought with you, to make certain it can pass safely through. I have a sense that this is ... different somehow."
Mike says hesitantly, "Uh... Not like this! Had the same loud, y'know, feeling, kinda like a noise you can't hear, but it looked just the same on this side and the other."
He peers into the portal. "Looks like one of the abandoned malls near the Works."
"If the phone is getting through, it must be somewhere real," Treasa says, and sticks her hand through the opening to see what happens.
"A coin," Brother Cadena suggests. "Or that device of yours, or - I'm not sure if that is safe?"
Mike fishes around in his pockets and then brings out-- "Is her hand supposed to be smoking like that?"
Treasa's hand tingles, as if it were being held to something hot.
"Yes, it is!" Treasa says. "It should be real out there," she claims as she pulls her hand back. "Hold the PDA through it, your hand shouldn't smoke, but if it starts to hurt, pull it back. As long as they can track the signal, we'll hold out on this side until the medevac team shows up."
Aldestre looks worried. "That's... I don't want my brother burning up!" he protests. Mike looks less than keen on this notion as well.
Obediently the would-be hacker puts his PDA through. Signal reception increases noticably, to two bars worth, and his hand doesn't smoulder. "We've got a fix," Holly reports. "Medevac's on its way!"
Brother Cadena nods. "Lady Treasa Truclaw is indeed experienced in these wonders, I see."
"He's been in here for hours, but last time there were some people who got sucked in near the Avatar's Theme Park for a day or more. They survived. It's just the air he's breathed that will evaporate.. which will probably hurt a lot, sorry, but you'll survive," Treasa explains.
Crashing noises issue from upstairs, then the rhythmic sound of hoofbeats.
"How soon, mom?" Treasa calls into the phone. "We think it's in the Works. And we've got incoming.. though I guess we could push them through the portal to get rid of them.."
"Treasa," Brother Cadena asks, "how long can I survive on the other side? I could accompany him and if there are any untoward effects, I could administer medical assistance until your mother's forces arrive."
Holly looks frantically at a panel off the side of the view pickup. "Two minutes," she says. "This is costing a bundle but I've rerouted a Valkyrie they already had out."
"I don't know," Treasa admits. "Something kept the Hunt together this morning when they came through. If you can cast a healing aura or something it might make you last longer."
The sounds of armored boots above mingle with the crack of pirate stunners and Hunt gunshots.
"I have no such power," Brother Cadena admits. "His life and yours are more important than my own, and we endanger you both if we tarry here for much longer."
"I'm in no real danger, only Mike is," Treasa notes. "If we get found, he goes through whether the medevac is there yet or not. Then we just have to defend this side."
Mike looks up. "What are we waiting on? It feels fine! C'mon through and close this door," he urges. "They're gonna catch up if we dither too long."
Chewing her lip, Treasa nods. "Okay, go through Mike, but just.. step through and take a deep breath. If you're okay, try to get out in the open to where the medevac can pick you up.. and don't hang up the phone!"
Brother Cadena makes up his mind, and steps through on his own, in front of Mike.
Instantly Cadena's fur is prickling everywhere, like he's being illuminated by spotlights or direct tropical sunlight, even though the abandoned mall interior is dank and dim.
Mike steps through, looking worried.
Brother Cadena scans the surroundings, looking for an egress to the top, hoping that the layout is something sensible.
Treasa follows next, gritting her teeth.
He coughs a few times, black puffs of smoke spilling out of his nostrils and mouth.. But seems to be fine. "See? It's all right! C'mon!"
Aldestre grins. "All right, close the door and I'll lead them off," he says. "Cait, you with me?"
Cait looks over at Tracy.
"It feels like fire," Brother Cadena remarks, "and ... I do not do so well with fire." Gathering his resolve, he nods. "We should head for the surface, so that we can be found by your mother's forces more quickly - and then, return as soon as possible."
"You've got the best chance of keeping them off our back," Treasa says to Cait, and eyes the odd door. "We can try to close it, but if it kills the portal, Cadena and I are going to melt a lot faster I think." Still, she gives it a try.
"I'm not sure closing the door is a good idea," Brother Cadena interjects.
Treasa stops. "Well, in that case let's get out into the open while we can," she says and tries to scout ahead after turning down the sensitivity of her VR headset in an attempt to mitigate the burning sensations.
Cait takes out two seeds and lays one on the ground. "I'll drop an illusion here," she says. "Cover up the portal. Then I'll fake you guys being with us."
Holly continues to monitor the line worriedly. "Tracy! Stay with me," she barks at her VR daughter. "Everything's going to be fine."
Brother Cadena says, "Treasa! Please - it is fine. Stay on the other side with your allies. I shall accompany him to the top. You ... you can close the door then." But without staying around to waste more time talking, he heads along, urging Mike on.
"Rrrrrrr," Tracy groans through gritted teeth. Turning down the feedback isn't helping, as she feels like she's being dipped in acid. "Mom.. it's not really me, it's my Avatar.." she manages to get out. "I'm still at Jason's.. not sure how much more of this I can take though."
Mike looks after Treasa, but stumbles along after Cadena.
Brother Cadena calls back to Treasa, "What is the call number to reach you on this 'PDA' device? We can let you know our progress!"
Treasa rattles off her number, hoping Mike's plan allows conference calling. "Don't break the connection to mom though, gonna try something.." she says, and then tries to shapeshift. Since there's no direct mapping of the panther body to human sensation, maybe the burning won't be as bad.
Cait and Aldestre linger at the door, watching Treasa with a shared look of worry.
The shapeshift is like nothing Tracy's ever experienced through her avatar. Fire lashes through every muscle. Her self-control breaking, she flees in catform back through the portal and into the depths of the mall.
To Mike, Brother Cadena says, "If I fall, do not stop to aid me, Mike Dexter. Please proceed to the roof, and tell them where to find me. I will accompany you for as far as I can." He cannot even spare a worried glance back - he can tell that time is running out.
"We got Mike out, that's what matters," Treasa thinks, feeling cooler now that she's back in the virtual world. "Just need to defend the portal. Then.. I can disconnect, and finally grab a shower. I hope Jason's date is going better at least.."
It's a nail-biting two minutes as Treasa plays distraction for the Wild Hunt, along with Cait and Aldestre, but Cadena rejoins them at the last, and closes the door behind him. With that, they are able to disconnect and return to the waking world.
Kimon chimes as they awaken. "Proximity alert: a large number of unidentified persons are gathering in the area surrounding Reality Check. Permission to open fire?"
"What?" Tracy asks, jerking herself up out of the papasan. "Show me some pictures!" she asks Kimon. So much for her shower.. but Jason would kill her if she let his castle be stormed! "Cadena, please be yourself again and call mom on your special channel!"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-01-30-surrounded-at-reality-check.htmlMonday, December 2, 2069, 10 PM Eastern
It's night in the Zen Gardens, and Jason and Akiko are enjoying their walk in the environmentally controlled gardens that surround the teahouse. Holographic cherry trees emit a realistic cherry perfume, and the gravel of the path shift slightly under their feet. Then Kimon breaks in over Jason's implant channel. "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, sir, but..."
Once Kimon displays the outside surveillance camera feed, it becomes clear why it's requested permission to engage Reality Check's security systems. There are at least ten suspicious looking characters outside, some hidden by bushes or rocks. They aren't uniformed, but they are all in tough-looking winter clothes with hoods pulled up and snow goggles being worn - probably a good idea, given winter in the Northeast can get bitingly cold at this hour of the night. Most of them are armed with long rifles suitable for hunting, but their apparent leader, dressed in a sleek black armored jumpsuit with an IR visor, is armed with a crossbow.
As he addresses his troops, Tracy recognizes his voice instantly. It's Mark Berkowitz! Behind him is a familiar taxi, and Miguel stands in its headlight beams with a thug standing beside him, a pistol in his hands but not aimed at Miguel's head - at least not yet. Miguel shivers; his taxi driver's uniform is not meant for standing around in the outdoors.
"David, go around and watch the back," he says into his headset. "Garrett, go cover the left, Fred, take your guys right. Remember, we want her alive, not pushing up lilies."
At the tea house, Jason turns and explains the situation to Akiko and asks if she wants to trust his security system to take care of it. She responds, "Jason! What kind of question is that? She's in danger! I'm not going to put our date over that!"
Jason: "I'm not just going to leave you, you'd have to come!"
Akiko: "It'll be just like old times!"
Jason: "Except for the squids."
Akiko: "I won't miss that part." She shows Jason a tiny little Naginata Shadow laser pistol she'd concealed somewhere on... how did she manage to hide that thing in her curves-hugging dress?
Back in the warehouse, Cadena dutifully attempts to call Holly. She pops up in the air before his collar. "Cadena? Tracy? What's wrong?"
"Mom!" Tracy yelps, turning away from the security monitors. "Did you pick up Mike okay?" she asks first.
"Tracy, are you absolutely determined to destroy my home?" Kimon's voice asks, the tone shifted somewhat to at least indicate it's not the AI speaking. "Whatever you do, do not leave the room you are in, things are about to get nasty."
Turning to the robot, Tracy says, "Yeah, like I'm gonna walk out there. So long as I don't show that I'm actually here they can't really do anything, right?"
"Akiko, keep an eye out for anything incoming, I need focus for a moment, I have a plan. Sort of. We'll see," Jason then remarks in their transport to his companion. Kimon then perks up, noting, "They have your taxi driver with them, they know." Her eyes then shift blood red as the machine engages into its hacking mode. The target being ... the controls of the various thugs' aircars.
Holly's holographic face nods. "We just picked him up. It looks like he had a relatively easy time of it, but we won't know for sure until the lab gets done scanning him." She peers at Tracy suspiciously. "Young lady, did you have anything to do with him being stuck in VR in the first place?"
Akiko's voice responds over Kimon's audio, "All right!"
"Why does everyone blame me for everything?" Tracy laments. "Mom.. I just convinced him that Sasha had tricked him. He did the rest himself! And it's also not my fault that me ex is outside with his gang, holding a cabby hostage so he can kidnap me. I figured the tower security guys would turn him over to the cops!"
Holly blinks. "Your ex? Which regrettable young man was that?" she says, eying Tracy even more severely. However, she's quick to take action. Tracy hears rapid keys clicking.
"Mark again," Tracy groans, rubbing her forehead. "And he's got a crossbow. Maybe they took away his gun, or he only had the one clip for it that I hid.." She blinks, then turns to a terminal and brings up the mailing-list monitor that Jason but in, to see if Mark actually used it to organize things..
Jason's electronic probing pops up with one immediate match. The taxi has a radio-based dispatching mechanism. Maybe he could use that as an entry into its autopilot systems...
Cadena looks around at the displays, at Tracy, at the image of Holly, and just looks lost and bewildered. He blinks several times, and shakes himself vigorously. He slowly trots across the floor behind Tracy, unsteadily, with movements something like a tipsy sailor regaining his land legs after a long sea voyage.
Sure enough, there's a message from Mark to other members of the Wild Hunt, advising them that he has 'inside information' on their number one quarry of the moment, Tracy of House Trudeau, and that they should meet him at a certain location... And to be armed with tranq rifles.
Jason zeroes in on that control signal. "Kimon, access forth-layer building controls and arm the sonic and tesla canons, please. Lets at least show these punks that it won't be that easy, mm?" he things as the frequency generator locks on the taxi radio system.
Kimon replies, "Security systems, echelon one, arming."
"Mom, does Cadena have some weird brain override for controlling a character in VR?" Tracy asks the hologram as she reads the messages and then chews on her lower lip. She realizes that she hasn't officially been given the Wild Hunt 'notification' by Mark or anyone else yet.. so maybe that's keeping him from doing anything.
"What was that? Did you hear something?" Mark says to the thugs nearby him. The others are spreading out per his orders. He lifts a megaphone to his lips. "Tracy! I know you're in there! We're the Wild Hunt and we're going to get your pretty little tail, so don't try anything funny or it's going to really hurt when I catch you and paddle it red!"
Hearing his name invoked, Cadena seems to sober up a bit. "My apologies, Mrs. Trudeau. It seems that I suffered from a memory fault while visiting the Gloaming via neural induction helmet. I lost my memories of the account creation interface segment, and I am not sure what credit information I gave. I am of course concerned about that. I am also afraid that my behavior in-game was erratic, as I failed to retain memory of the local ASIM-05 behavioral protocols, and ... rather lost sight of my priorities. I will file a complete report once we are out of the current crisis situation."
"Don't forget the bit about talking to Black!" Tracy reminds Cadena. She winces at Mark's announcement.. but it wasn't the formal Wild Hunt notification, since he didn't mention the 'if you elude us for 6 days' part. Next time I'll be sure to tase him below the belt, she thinks. Still, no sense acknowledging him yet, since he hasn't given the proper notification.
One of the other persons leans toward Mark and whispers something. He adds, "Oh yeah, and if you manage to stay out of our clutches for, um, four days, you get a boon or something, yadda yadda. You won't, so don't get your hopes up. Hunt's on!"
Garrett visibly face-palms.
"Correction. I did not interact, to my knowledge, with any entity self-identifying as the BLACK," Cadena says, as he struggles to squirm into his protective vest once more. "He did, however, make the accusation that I was in service to the WHITE. Considering that this took place in the Gloaming environment, and that my in-game character appearance could arguably have been infringing upon Avatars Incorporated imagery ... well, I honestly don't know what to make of it."
Tracy helps Cadena with his vest snaps. "Kimon, I can talk to the people outside through you if I need to, right? Would they hear my voice or Jason's if I did?" she asks the robot.
Cadena continues to fret, looking a little distant, "I'm not even sure if I signed up for a one-day pass or trial membership, or whether I paid for an annual or semi-annual membership! This does not bode well for my ability to manage funds responsibly."
"They can hear any of one-thousand voice variants by passing it through modulators and using the speaker-arrays outside of this facility. Owner: Jason Edwards voice print on file. Nuisance: Tracy Trundeau voice print on file. Master-Of-Tentacles: Holly Trundeau, voice print on file..." Kimon remarks in monotone.
The taxi's control systems appears like some sort of electical generator in front of Jason's senses, surrounded by rotating walls of cryptographic protection. He works steadily, working his probe through the layers, while elsewhere in reality Akiko is guiding him into a taxi and giving a destination.
Holly looks up at this from where she's assessing the situation. "Master of WHAT?"
"Sorry for the damage your taxi is about to receive, Miguel," Jason thinks to himself.
The taxi's autopilot, sensing an outside connection, attempts to return the electronic probing... But is deflected easily by Kimon's systems.
"Focus, Cadena," Tracy tells the dog. She turns to Kimon, and grins. "Okay, relay this using Holly Trudeau's voice print please: Mark Berkowitz, does your mother know that you're trying to kidnap your ex-girlfriend? Because I'll make sure everyone else knows. Try getting a date after that message goes out."
The thugs outside continue to move into position, with David and his two friends sliding around the building to the west to try to cut off any exits on the backside.
"Please accept my apologies, Lady ... Tracy," Cadena says. "Disorientation. Failure to connect ... but it is not important." The dog closes his eyes for a few seconds, then opens them. "Focused now. I will defend and serve you to the best of my ability. This is my focus."
Mark visibly reddens at Holly's voice, but true to form, tries to bull on despite any obstacles. "Move up!" he yells. "If you see her mom, trank her too! Twice!"
"Good boy!" Tracy say, and rubs Cadena behind the ears as she listens to Mark. "Kimon, Nuisance Voice now, relay: Did you tell your friends how I got the drop on you this morning and tased you in the back of the head.. and how you wet yourself while knocked out?" She knows the last part isn't true, but she just wants Mark to be mad and stupid.
As Jason continues probing the taxi, all the layers of defenses suddenly align. He snakes his probe in, and a few seconds later is rewarded with the welcome text for the autopilot system. "G-Motors Taxi Autopilot ready, where may we take you today?"
"Disable any impact sensors and obstruction avoidance, then swing vehicle out hard left.," Jason instructs it, "Activate any exterior cameras available. Time to play an old game called bumper cars..."
Kimon advises Jason, "Echelon one defenses, armed and ready. Six enemy units within optimal radius."
"Light them up," Jason actually says in the car with Akiko ... as well and sending the command to Kimon.
Via Kimon, Tracy says, "I'll make you a deal, Marky; call this off now, and I won't upload the photos of you drooling on my kitchen floor with your pants down to the Wild Hunt mailing list. Maybe I'll just send them directly to Artemis, so she can put them on the website.."
As Tracy's own voice echoes through the outside parking lot, Mark manages to go beyond red into purple. "LIES! Fred, Garrett, go for the front door, I'll be right behind her... And I'm going to SHUT her UP!"
The taxi's autopilot acknowledges Jason's driving program. It begins to swing into action.
Kimon replies to Jason, "Affirmative. Echelon one defenses... Firing."
The abandoned cars explode into blue lashes of lightning accompanied by wild banshee wailing! Wild Hunt thugs scramble trying to get away from them.
Watching the light show, Tracy mutters, "I'll get blamed if anyone gets hurt."
Fred manages to throw himself back out of the line of fire, but electricity writhes and crackles over the other thugs that were caught in the tesla coils' area of effect. Garrett yells in pain as he and his allies are shocked.
"Ouch, that had to have smarted," Tracy says through Kimon. "Looks like your innate cowardice paid off this time, Marky!" she taunts, as she heads for the locker to get the sneaksuit and her taser. I wish I'd had a chance to shower today, she thinks as she starts to change. I'm wearing the wrong underwear for this.
The taxi engages its motor. The thug near it yells, "Hey, what the--" And then it swerves hard left, smacking him against the next car over! He slides under the hovercar, evidently out cold.
Cadena winces as he sees the monitor display. He does a quick once-over of the monitor displays, looking for any useful information ... such as wisps of strange black smoke rising from bodies anywhere, for instance.
And back in the taxi, Jason, while looking half-asleep, smiles rather evilly. "Pinball-the-thug, taxi style," he thinks to himself. "Now ... where is their leader..."
Mark Berkowitz grits his teeth. "Get out of those shockers!" he yells. "C'mon, break for the front door! She's got to be in there!"
"Kimon?" Cadena asks, uncertainly. "In the event that hostile invaders breach this building's defenses, and enter this room, could you recommend a place in which I might hide to ambush them, where I am not in danger of bumping into any exposed and important cables, or dangerously close to any sensitive equipment that could be damaged?"
Garrett manages, through supreme willpower, to tear himself away from the lightning that gyrates wildly around the car!
Mark charges determinedly along with Fred. They seem only seconds away from gaining access to the building!
"The entrances to the work area are guarded by lethal force if proper security clearance is granted to activate it. It is advised to remain clear of the two entrances, and assume authorization will be granted. The two work-benches in this facility, while important to the Owner's work, are of nominal value and are relatively easily replaced. The control consoles are more expensive," Kimon recites.
Miguel, shocked by his taxi roaring to life, begins to pray. "Our father who art in Heaven, thank you for delivering me from this terrible trial!" He then breaks into a run away from the thugs and warehouse!
The tesla coils' lightning dies away. Kimon reports, "Charge expended. Re-arming Echelon One defense."
The taxi comes around and points at the running human figures... VrrrOOOM!
Cadena peeks up worriedly from where he's kind-of-hiding behind Jason's desk. "Uh, Kimon? Are you able to seek cover if they break in here?"
"I am capable of ambulatory action," Kimon recites.
As the taxi charges headlong toward Reality Check - and Jason worries about how big a dent it's going to leave in the side of his beloved warehouse - Mark spots the headlights coming his way and dives out of its path! The thugs yell panickedly. "Keep going!" Mark yells. "Tracy's gotta be controlling this stuff from inside there!"
Getting out of her standard jumpsuit is easy, but the sneaksuit isn't so quick to put on. Eventually she seals up the front, and the whole thing shrinks to conform to her skin. She grabs her taser and runs for the door to the lobby - as much as she dislikes Mark, she doesn't want to see him killed by Jason's inner defenses!
Cadena's head pops back up. "Tracy! Where are you going? Are you not required to remain within this room?"
"Kimon, warn them about the lethal defenses!" Tracy calls out as she changes.
"Warning attackers of defensive capabilities is not advisable," Kimon recites. "Confirm command."
"Do it!" Tracy insists. "We don't want them dead! They're just morons!"
Cadena says, "I am not certain your instructions were suitably specific. I believe you should only warn them of the threat of lethal force - not to specifically warn them of the defenses!"
One of the twitching thugs manages to snap out of it! He looks around and spots his buddies charging toward the door, and hurries that way.
Mark eyes the door and then turns to Fred. "We need a can opener!" His lieutenant frowns but pulls out a grenade.
"Yes yes yes, don't tell them what they are, just that they're lethal!" Tracy says in exasperation. "Why do AIs have to be so picky.."
"Order confirmed," Kimon recites emotionlessly. Outside, the speaker systems state in monotone. "Breaching the perimeter of this facility is considered an act of lethal aggression and will respond in kind. By continuing you accept all liability and authorize this facility to terminate your life at its leisure. This is the only warning you will receive."
"Furthermore, am I correct in understanding that you do not wish for me to employ potentially lethal force when dealing with those who threaten your wellbeing?" Cadena asks. "That would not be my default behavior in such a situation against superior numbers of armed opponents, especially. That will greatly reduce my tactical options."
Fred takes careful aim, then lobs the grenade at the doors!
KaTHUMP! The grenade lands exactly at the base... Then explodes with deadly force!
"Cadena.." Tracy starts to reply, but then the grenade goes off.
"ARGH!" One of the thugs who was standing too close gets knocked back by the explosion... Evidently out cold.
"Frotz it, Fred!" Mark swears.
Fred retorts, "Save it, you wanted us in, I got us in!" Mark grumbles, but motions for his men to press on into the now exposed, shrapnel-savaged lobby of Reality Check.
"Jason's gonna kill me," Tracy wails.
They advance into the lobby, guns drawn, looking around warily for any resistance.
Cadena's eyes narrow, and his lips curl to reveal fangs, though he has enough presence of mind not to betray his hiding place with an audible snarl.
Jason's attention is quickly caught by the sudden burst of errors from his main door camera system! "/Kimon, lethal force authorized. Activate all remaining systems; electrify all doors and exposed metal trim, tear and sleeping gas, and gun turrets,/" the hacker commands the system. And given the /doors of his building are now /gone/, Jason aims the cab right for the hole, and the tugs inside.
For a second, it looks like it's going to slam right into the building... But Jason manages to whip it around and aim it at the thugs. They stare back at it like deer caught in headlights.
Mark dives trying to get out of the way of the rampaging taxi, but gets knocked to the ground! The thug behind him takes the brunt of its impact.
The taxi slams into the wall of the lobby. Its headlights go out, and the autopilot whines unhappily at Jason about unacceptable damage to its structure.
Kimon replies, "Echelon Two defenses: activated." White gas vents into the lobby, though with the fans from the taxi still running, it plays havoc with the air circulation - this system was meant to be activated on a fully enclosed room after all.
"Funny-smelling gas," Mark's companion reports. "Smells like..." He slumps to the ground. Garrett yells, "It's tranq gas! Hold your breath!"
Sealing her suit-mask and sticking her taser into one of the expanding pockets of the sneaksuit, Tracy cautiously heads for the lobby door.
"Tracy!" Cadena calls out. "Please take cover! They have explosives!"
"I don't see a bomb shelter in here," Tracy grumbles, but gets under the nearest workbench and activates the suit's stealth mode.
The Wild Hunt outside peer at one another cautiously, then visibly take deep breaths and plunge into the lobby, now shattered by the grenade and the taxi.
"And Kimon," Cadena adds, "if you are indeed ambulatory, and this would not interfere with your defense capabilities, I would advise you to seek cover as well."
"Moving," Kimon remarks.
Mark stirs groggily on the floor. "Anyone get the license number of that truck?" he groans.
Ambulatory computers without emotion move as if nothing at all is the matter with what is going on; meaning she 'saunters' over to the other workbench and gracefully slides herself under it.
Holly's voice whispers to Cadena, "If you can stall them, I have forces on the way, they'll be there in about four minutes!"
Garrett takes aim at the doorknobs on the double doors leading into the majority of the warehouse. He flips an ammo selector from '2' to '1', then warns, "Back away from the door if you don't want to get hurt!"
The door buckles inward!
Fred moves up to the now shattered door and peers in cautiously, his rifle barrel nosing around the edge.
Behind the warehouse, David reports into his headset, "Looks quiet back here. You guys okay up front?... Mark? Fred? Garrett?"
"Bloody foreign imports. Can't hold up to a simple crash. Shoddy! Jason complains as he starts doing crazy things like activating the air conditioning controls and using those circuits to reroute the main controls. Sure, movement won't be as smooth or accurate, but...
The white dog keeps down, behind the modesty plate, crouching and biding his time to spring out and give someone a nasty surprise ... or so he hopes.
From her hiding place, Tracy calls out, "I don't know how big a share of the reward you were hoping for, but it's not worth dying for. Don't step through that door!"
Mark manages to get to his feet. "Ow... That's going to hurt in the morning." He looks around at the still-running taxi, then yells, "GET IN THERE! NOW! Get her!"
The black armored thugs pile into the warehouse main lab area, with Mark looking back over his shoulder at the taxi.
Garrett sweeps the warehouse. "Looks empty," he says to Mark. "You sure we have the right address?" He retorts, "She's got to be in here somewhere."
David shouts, "Look! There's a back door! Covering it, Mark. What're your instructions, big boy?"
There's a rather worrying whirr right above Tracy and Kimon. Two of what appeared to be air-return ducks open up and two very nasty-looking machine-gun style turrets drop down (probably salvaged!). There's several clicks as the belt-feed starts up. A moment later the room is poundingly loud as the guns erupt in a short burst of fire and the acrid stench of gunpowder as they train on the thugs! "Lethal force deployed and targets locked. Have a nice day!" a tinny voice chirps all too cheerfully.
Blood spouts as one turret rips into Fred! He screams, flung back against the shelf by the impact. The other turret tracks Mark, who yelps as the bullets pelt him painfully and turns toward the nearest cover - Tracy's table..
Garrett and the other thug yelp. "Guns! Get in here, David!" Garrett yells into his headset, pulling his rifle up and aiming for the closer turret.
Suddenly, there's a flash of white from behind Jason's workstation, as Mark dives for Tracy's hiding position - Cadena is on an intercept course. He goes right for the throat (since the rest is obviously armored), with his claws extended to abnormally large size.
"I gave you your chance to live!" Cadena snarls, as he slashes at the armored throat. "No one harms my mistress! NO ONE!"
Mark gurgles as Cadena's teeth close around his throat! Even through the flexible ceramic armor of his jumpsuit, that has to hurt. He goes down to the floor, limp.
Garrett's rifle fires! The bullet spangs off of the turret's armor and cracks against the far bookshelf.
The other thug switches to standard bullets as well, but his own shot is also deflected. "Frotz! These things are armored or something! Unfair!" he yelps.
"Why aren't they trying to get away?" Tracy wonders. When Mark goes down, and the rifles start up, she feels more and more certain that 'stay still, stay quiet, be invisible' is the best course of action, and follows it.
"Thank you for the gift of bullets," the turret chirps happily, "We will endeavor to return your gift and surpass it!"
Mark recovers enough to struggle with the white-furred canid that has him engaged in combat. "Get... off... you... mutt!"
Fred groans, lying against the bookshelf, a bin of spare batteries toppled over onto his head.
Garrett motions to his friend, "Get under cover and kill that dog!" He makes for Tracy's table himself!
The ski-masked and bulletproof-vest-wearing accomplice crouches down by Jason's workstation, and takes aim.
With Garrett suddenly in reach, Tracy makes a strike at his wrist in an attempt to keep him from using his weapon!
Envoy tries one more!
The bullet cracks into Cadena's side! It leaves a painful bruise, but doesn't seem to have pierced the Kevlar.
Garrett yelps as an invisible hand reaches out and wrestles his rifle away from him! "Gah! It's a ghost!"
Alright, ya yellow-bellied varmint. Ya shot da doggie, so dance!" the turrets declare in really bad faux-cowboy accents. "Yeehaw!" One turret swings and fires on the thug! The other targets Garrett!
"No, wait! She's wearing a sneaksuit!" Garrett corrects, turning around trying to grab his gun away from her.
"Cannot target aggressor, Nuisance is in the way," Turret 1 complains. Turret 2, though opens up on the thug!
Powpowpow! The thug is slammed against the wall by the turret's return fire. A puddle of red blood appears under him.
Cadena, meanwhile, is still in full frenzy mode, slashing and scraping against Mark's armored suit, but finding no purchase against it.
Figuring that wrestling with a stronger opponent is a losing option, Tracy throws the rifle back towards the other workbench before it can wrested back from her, then reaches for the pocket with her taser in it.
Garrett looks anguished as his rifle gets flung to the side, but decides based on the feminine outline he sees that maybe he can grab her and save his buddies a lot of time. He lunges after Tracy!
... and misses. "Stay still, you little minx!" he growls.
Fred, battered but still alive, struggles to consciousness. "Wh... What's going on?" He blinks blurrily at Garrett attacking the empty air underneath the table.
Mark struggles with the dog on him, trying to work his way around to kick Cadena off.
ZAP! An unfamiliar voice yelps, "Pull him away! The door's electrified!"
"No no no, little Timmy. You stay in the well," the turret chips and opens up a burst on poor fred! The other one keeps tracking around, but doesn't find a target that isn't also near someone designated as 'please don't kill'. "Aww, I never get to have any fun," it complains.
The bullets crunch against Fred's vest! He slumps back down again, evidently knocked out.
Despite Mark's ferocious struggling, Cadena is like a fuzzy white limpet mine... Equipped with ferocious teeth and claws that seem bigger than they have any right to be.
Mark arghs! He cowers under the dog's wild onslaught of bites and claws, trying to protect his face with his arms.
Garrett growls, trying to keep his eyes fixed on the elusive shimmer that must be his quarry. "Pull yourself together, Mark!" he yells. "I've... Got ya!" He springs again.
Not quite - off by a country mile, alas for him.
Mark whimpers.
From outside, David's voice echoes over Mark's still-open comlink. "Ungh! It's electrified," he says. "I'm okay! Shoot it open!" A guncrack.
Tracy can't keep dodging forever while under the table, so scoots out and heads for the lockers where she can have room to maneuver, will be covered by the turrets, and can finish drawing her taser.
"Hey! Get back here," Garrett complains, trying to grasp Tracy as her form shimmers away... To no avail.
The white dog continues its largely ineffectual flurry of claws and fang against Mark's armored suit, barking largely unintelligible threats all the while.
"Ah keel yew!" Turret 1 chips, and bursts at Garrett!
Turret 1 opens fire, but unfortunately the shots either deflect from Garrett's armor, or from the table partially obscuring him. Garrett throws a wistful look at his rifle... Wait. What is that robot doing to. Oh no. "My gun!" he yells.
Now that she has her taser drawn, Tracy squats down and centers the laser dot on Garret's chest, and pulls the trigger..
Holly's projection has gone into stealth mode - that is, she can still see and hear what's going on around Cadena, but she's blanked the image it would normally project. She whispers into Cadena's ear, "We have got to get you bigger teeth!"
The taser gun fires! ZAP The electrode connects squarely onto Garrett's chest. He convulses.
"Oh, I hear raindrops tapping on your head!" Turret 1 chips along happily. "Nice lead raindrops, traveling at 1600 feet per second!"
A blinking light appears under Jason's VR overlay, warning him that turret #1 is starting to run low on ammunition. Turret #2 is fine, having only fired a few rounds.
Alas, its aim is a little off. Those bullets that strike, are deflected by the ceramic hexagons that armor the suit.
Garrett struggles through gritted teeth to peel the electrodes away from his chest.
Cadena manages to draw blood! Mark cowers. "Make it stop!" he begs. "Make the hurting stop!"
David, accompanied by two thugs, burst into the shot-open back closet and through the kitchen! "Shoot that door open!" yells David, now in stereo from Mark's comlink and from the southern door as well.
"Then SURRENDER, you worthless walking bag of filth! You and all your cohorts!" Cadena snarls. "This hunt of yours is no game! You worthless man-child, who thinks you can shoot whomever you please, then run crying home when you don't get your way!" He continues, frothing at the mouth.
Mark yells, "Enough! We surrender! Stand down! Just stop hurting me!"
Garrett, about to lunge after Tracy's elusive shimmering outline, pauses and then slowly raises his hands.
"If they've surrendered, then they can pay for the damages," Tracy says to Kimon, hoping Jason will turn off the turrets for that.
"Terms of surrender are not in database. Computing proper terms now," one of the turrets chip, "All those who are surrendering must strip off any protective gear and be bound together. Any attempt at betrayal will be met with Echelon three response."
Holly's voice sounds from Cadena's collar. "Security forces are on the way to arrest you, Mr. Berkowitz. You'll be charged with breaking and entering, armed assault with deadly force, and attempted kidnapping."
Mark and Garrett surrender, removing their jumpsuits, exposing their boringly bland skivvies. The other thugs seem out cold.
"Down! Down on the floor! Hands behind your head!" Cadena barks. "BITE THE TILE!"
"We need to find Miguel before the scavengers do too," Tracy says, sounding relieved. She swipes at the controls on the arm of the suit, but instead of simply deactivating stealth she accidentally sets it transparent. She deactivates a second later, but not before anyone looking knows that she has red silk underwear.
"We need to find Miguel before the scavengers do too," Tracy says, sounding relieved. She swipes at the controls on the arm of the suit, turning back into default gray.
"Good luck with that, he is likely long gone," as Kimon extracts herself herself from the workbench.
Minutes later, the promised security has arrived, along with Jason and Akiko (holding her slim and deadly little laser pistol at the ready). Holly, suited up in tactical armor, looks around the remains of Jason's lobby, then rushes in to hug Tracy, while the stern-looking guards bag and tag the thugs.
"Mom!" Tracy cries and hugs back. "This was not my fault!" she immediately claims.
A very ... hm, it's hard to say just how Jason is feeling when he comes marching through the broken lobby, fragments of glass and other debris crunching under his feet. He surveys the damage, then proceeds to run his hands through his hair. "I don't suppose you can leave those two in my care? I have a pair of shears and a blowtorch I want to introduce them to," he remarks tiredly to the security and waves towards Mark and Garrett. He's probably not serious, but...
Cadena bounds about in the background, rushing from prone thug to another. Now that the immediate threat has subsided, he has suddenly switched from "kill-kill-kill" mode into "Oh no! Human beings are BLEEDING!" mode, as he attempts to administer first aid to make sure that no one bleeds out while waiting on medical assistance.
"We need them," Tracy says. "They have to contact Artemis for the meeting place on where to drop me off for their reward, after all, right?"
Holly hugs Tracy tenderly. "I know it's not your fault, dear. It's that frotzing S--" Her embrace turns viselike. "Honey, you are NOT going to be live bait!"
Miguel seems to have made good his escape. What little Cadena can make out of his trail, after all the fumes of the grenade explosion and the ionic discharge from the rigged cars, suggests he might have made his way to the nearest public telephone booth.
"Of course not, Mom!" Tracy claims. "Otherwise Jason would have staked me out in the parking lot by now."
The white dog pads up to Holly and Tracy. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Trudeau, but I failed to pick up any useful trails on the others who fled the scene. It appears that they are also guilty of holding a cab driver hostage, forcing him at gunpoint to lead them to us. I recognized him from earlier. I am not certain how to contact him to make sure that he escaped."
"I have his phone number.. but I think it's for the cab phone," Tracy notes.
Holly eyes Jason. "I do not feel comfortable leaving two weirdos who may still intend to kidnap my daughter in your care," she says, straightening up. "Jason, I'd much rather relocate you all into an Avatars safehouse, but you might be a little bit attached to all your fancy gadgets here."
Trying to derail her mother's train of thought, Tracy notes, "Jason was on a date with Akiko tonight. How'd it go, Jason?"
Cadena blinks, looking a bit derailed as well.
"What is left of them," Jason points out and gestures around his 'lab'. "And if you feel so convinced of my inability to manage things, then take her," he adds and waves to Tracy. "As for the date, ask Akiko. She should be coming in soon considering she came with me when we had to cut everything short."
"I guess a safehouse is okay while stuff gets fixed," Tracy mumbles, and runs her fingers through her still-unwashed, bad-hair-day hair. "So long as the General doesn't know where it is."
While the others are chatting about dates and such, Cadena trots over to the side, and calls up his e-message service, checking for any new arrivals. It doesn't take very long at all, and then he trots right back.
Akiko steps in, looking... Wow, is that really Akiko? Tracy remembers her as a scared little Japanese girl, but now she's matured into an Asian beauty in a shimmering blue silk dress that ripples as if she were wearing ocean waves. She puts her gun away since it seems like the threat is well contained now. "It went wonderfully," she assures Tracy.
Tracy's mouth drops open, and she seems to shrink as she slouches and pulls her hair down in front of her face. "Hi Akiko," she says, sounding defeated.
Cadena quietly looks up at Tracy, cocking his head sideways, one ear quirked inquisitively as he eyes her, then looks at Holly, at Akiko, at Jason....
"Until? Do you even know how much all of this will cost to repair?" Jason asks, sounding rather defeated himself. "I don't have endless corporate funds backing me. I'll have to salvage and repair it all myself. This will take at least a year to put right." He heads towards Kimon to check her for damage while Akiko and Tracy .. talk.
Akiko moves up to touch Tracy's hand, smiling. "I haven't seen you in forever!" she says to Tracy. "Are you all right? Jason filled me in a little, but he was concentrating on things here while we flew over."
Holly frowns. "Well, I'll put my lawyers on the case and maybe we can squeeze some money out of those idiots," she says. Mark, Garrett, and Fred (patched up thanks to Cadena's intervention) along with the other would-be Wild Hunters are outside in the chill night wind, preparing to be airlifted away to an Avatars LLC security holding facility. "If you need a lab in the meantime, Jason, I can get you authorization to use one of our spare facilities. No charge!"
Tracy seems suddenly shy, but still smiles to Akiko. "You've changed a lot. I'll be okay.. nobody died, but I didn't do much. Jason told me to stay put so I hid most of the time. I think maybe he hates me though." She reaches down to pet Cadena, since it's nice to have someone standing at her side.
Cadena just quietly leans into the petting, tail wagging slowly.
"I'll consider your offer," Jason notes to Holly once he is satisfied Kimon wasn't damaged in the chaos. He rubs his hands slowly over his face, perhaps in frustration. "This is hopeless," he finally says. "We don't have the equipment, funds, or resources, to deal with what is going on. They're just going to pick us apart, one by one. I just lost two-thirds of my defenses in five minutes and now my home is exposed to salvagers. Two thirds to a buch of idiot kids off on some stupid game quest."
"What kind of mental defective keeps charging on past nasty, but nonlethal defenses, ignores repeated warnings that lethal force will be deployed, and so on?" Jason continues, "Who is that stupid? I don't want to start killing people but what choice are these idiots giving me?"
"Jason? Hate you?" Akiko looks surprised at Tracy. "If you're here at all, it means he trusts you! He might be a little bit upset about the damage, but..." She looks over at Jason ranting at Holly. "It's not like it's your fault jerks with too much weapons and too little brains are after you, is it?"
Holly frowns. "They've played a lot of Gloaming... Avatars LLC follows the rules on VR interfaces, but what about Dantech? Could they have been hypnotized?"
"But I was here, and they found me because someone must have seen me get into that taxi," Tracy says with a sigh. "He thinks I make too many mistakes because I'm a naive kid."
Kimon begins storing the neatly disassembled and cleaned parts of the rifle.
"Plus I'm cursed," Tracy adds in a whisper. "Even if the curse is named Sasha."
"I wouldn't know. I stay away from VR games," Jason remarks, shaking his head. "Now I have to weld temporary doors up on the front until I can actually fix it correctly. That's going ..." He groans again, "What time is it?"
Akiko pets Tracy's hand. "Tell me about it! She was my curse four years ago, always sniffing me and Inari out, no matter how we tried to hide," she says. "She might be after me this time too! But at least I'm not going to be helpless this time, I made myself a promise." She pats the hidden pocket where her hold-out gun is concealed.
Kimon replies, "At the sound of the tone, it will be 10:15, Jason."
beep!
"Right. An hour and a half, roughly. Might be time to weld up some makeshift doors," Jason remarks. He looks at the mess again and amends, "If it is even worth it."
Cadena gives Tracy's other hand a friendly and sympathetic lick, and then he trots over toward Jason and Holly near the door.
Grinning to Akiko, Tracy says, "You toughened up I see. Mom made me learn martial arts.. but I did sorta like it after awhile. Got into gymnastics and stuff because of it. Am I a terrible person for wanting to pummel Sasha until she isn't recognizably human anymore?"
Akiko looks skyward. "Was I terrible for wanting the same thing?"
"Nope, I guess that makes us normal then!" Tracy says cheerfully, then glances over at her mother and Jason (and now Cadena). "So.. did Jason fall apart when he saw you dressed like this?" she asks in a whisper.
Holly shakes her head. "Well, do you want me to take Tracy off your hands for tonight, Jason? And did you have anything you wanted to ask our young would-be kidnappers before I slap them into a room with a lightbulb, a table and two chairs?"
Akiko grins! "Yes, yes he did. He looked so, so very cutely lost!"
"Is there gonna be a second date then?" Tracy asks, looking sly.
Cadena looks back and forth between Holly and Jason, tail wagging slowly.
"I'll ask them later. As for Tracy ... she'll probably want to meet Inari. She should touch down at midnight. So ... no, she can remain. I can always put her on cleanup duty; someone has to sweep up this mess," Jason says.
"That depends on Jason," Akiko confides to Tracy. "He's going to be picking up Inari in a little less than two hours. Our lovable hacker Robin Hood has a busy life."
Holly frowns. "I'll leave a few men here to keep patrol then," she says. "They won't get in your way, promise! But Mark and his band of idiots might have been a little bit deterred if they'd seen some armed opposition on the outside."
"Inari is coming?" Tracy squeaks, eyes going wide. "Oh no.. Jason will be totally distracted then."
"I can't believe it either, but if she says she is, then she'll be here!" Akiko says.
"They walked through million-volt discharge defenses," Jason points out to Holly, "I don't think a few guards would have deterred them."
"Uh, you'd be competing with her you know," Tracy whispers to Akiko, while glancing at Jason. "I gave up as soon as I saw you, but I never really stood a chance anyway."
Cadena nods slowly. "They showed almost complete disregard for personal safety," he notes in a low voice. He must be in the "not sure whether I'm allowed to talk in front of everybody" mode. "Even with an out-of-control taxi careening around, they seemed to largely ignore it except when it was bearing down directly upon them. It was if they thought they were acting out in VR, like those terrorists at the dormitory, almost."
Holly smirks. "Your average Joe Stabbingham is not familiar with a tesla coil defense system," she points out. "Thanks to decades of action movies, however, he is familiar with how guns work. But there's only so much I can do, and I am not bringing my daughter back in hadncuffs... However much she might deserve it.
"In the meantime," Cadena suggests, still quietly, "you might either rent or scavenge a couple of ISO containers to drop in front of and behind the building, as temporary seals on the doors. If you get one with a side door that could face inside, you could lock the main access doors on the container. That should dissuade anyone without ready access to a hauler."
Akiko sighs. "Well, if you love something, set it free, if it loves you, it'll come back to you," she quotes looking philosophical, then confides to Tracy in a hushed whisper. "I love Inari, and if she and Jason would be happy together, I'll try to want that."
The young Japanese woman twiddles with a strand of her hair at this thought.
"Frankly, she would probably like handcuffs too much," Jason remarks rather dryly. His head tilts, then a nod follows. "A fair suggestion with regards to the doors. It would secure it well enough."
"Well, I don't know that they'd be happy.." Tracy admits. "You two at least wouldn't have to change your entire lifestyles to see each other. I should check out the damage to the lobby. If Jason will let me use the conference room projectors, I can whip up a 'scape to hide the damage."
"One more minor thing, Holly ... if these are the types of boys you let Tracy date ... you both need to go to counseling. A lot," Jason adds.
Holly nods agreement as well. "Anything else I can do for you before I kiss my daughter goodnight and take these idiots downtown? And what are we going to do about Randall?" she asks of Jason. "Who isn't getting a goodnight kiss, through no fault of his own."
Cadena's tail wags more vigorously, happy to be of help. "I also may have a minor conundrum, but I suppose it can wait. It's not nearly as important as this. Just a little glitch regarding the Gloaming and its curious billing practices ... or perhaps a gap in my memory. I'm not sure which."
"I already have plans in action for dealing with Randall," Jason answers, but doesn't elaborate. "Hopefully they will work better than this did."
"Believe me, Mark Berkowitz was not my choice," Holly replies. "Thank God my daughter picked up the signals and realized he was a bad choice."
Holly nods to Jason, then goes over to give Tracy another hug and a kiss on her forehead. "You be careful, all right, sweetheart, and help Jason with the mess? I'm going to leave a few men to guard this place, but if something big's coming, don't try to play hero, just get out and get safe."
Tracy thinks for a moment, then asks, "Mom? Can I have some of those Gen-8 AV projectors you use at trade shows?"
"The big ones? Whatever for?" Holly looks puzzled.
"There are no heroes here," Jason calls out. He shakes his head then heads towards Akiko. "Sorry about this. And everything. This was supposed to be a normal night and I managed to botch it," he tells her when he gets close and ends up looking at the floor.
"Well.. I could hide all the damage to the building, project guard robots.. maybe an alligator pit or a roof-dragon. You know, like I did for Halloween before all the complaints?" the girl notes.
Akiko flings her arms around Jason and hugs him. "Oh, Jason! When has life with you ever been normal?" she says with a laugh.
Holly pauses to think. "Well. I think I can get one free, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow morning," she says to her daughter. "That's covered by Stageworker's Union, and they don't do overnight rush jobs."
Tracy hugs her mother, saying, "Thanks Mom! Maybe it'll improve Jason's mood if he doesn't have to see all the damage.."
Holly laughs a bit. "Jason would still know it was there. But I think he works better angry." The middle-aged Chinese mother gives Jason a fond look. "He's probably got some harebrained plan for rescuing Randall. Just remember, life isn't a VR movie, honey. Call me before things go bad."
Jason isn't quite sure how to react to being hugged! "I was really trying to be normal tonight, though," he admits. The squeak of the squashed dragon in his jacket, though, doesn't really help with an image of normalcy. It's also rather awkward, but he does hug Akiko back eventually ... and when he thinks no one is watching, he kisses her cheek quickly. "Thank you for putting up with the insanity," he adds quietly.
"Of course," Tracy promises. "Within the limits of plausible deniability, anyway."
Cadena just wags and looks happy, as it seems the spirits of the humans are buoyed considerably compared to where they were but a few minutes ago.
RIU licks Akiko's ear, causing her to giggle against Jason. She whispers back, "I think I've actually missed it. I'll give you a hand with cleaning up... Unless you'd rather I go?"
Holly grins. "That's my girl," She hugs Tracy again, then Akiko and Jason and gives Cadena a petting, before she goes to escort her prisoners to their new temporary home.
More than anything, Tracy wants to take a calming bath right now. But instead she goes over to Jason and Akiko. "Jason, want me to secure all those cars the Wild Hunt left behind? I mean, maybe we can use them tonight? Or at least to pick up Inari," she asks.
"If you try to leave,I'll handcuff you to a table," Jason claims to Akiko just before Tracy shows up. Hoping that Tracy didn't hear that, he tells her, "Can you manage doing that without someone trying to kidnap you?"
Akiko laughs. "Kinky," she teases Jason. "I'll go with Tracy and keep an eye out."
Cadena wags and gives a quick bark as if to say, "I can help, too!"
"Well, Cadena can guard me," Tracy notes at the bark. "And I still have a few minutes of invisibility left..."
"Keep an eye on her, she does strange things," Jason warns Akiko and thumbs towards Tracy. "Also, feel free to club her over the head if she gives you any trouble at all..."
Akiko whispers to Tracy, "I know you mean well, but let's face it, nothing puts Jason out of the mood more than his lab being in shambles. Let's go deal with those cars!"
"Okay," Tracy agrees. "I don't want to be the one having to pull bullets out of the tables anyway.."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-02-13-airport-pickup.htmlMonday, December 2, 2069, 11:55 PM Eastern
With five minutes to spare, Jason touches down on the landing pad. A monitor lights up with parking fees and instructions as the stolen aircar glides forward and down into the parking structure, followed by the second "getaway" car. If they don't get back, then someday Mr. Berkowitz and his friend Garrett are going to have a heck of a parking fee waiting for them when he gets out of jail, courtesy of the North Bend International Airport.
An elevator descends from the parking level to the underground level, where a moving walkway whisks them to the airport terminal itself. They pass the baggage claim area where bored and sleepy-looking travelers wait for their luggage to emerge, and the ticketing area, where an artificially perky sales-robot waits to serve any customers unfortunate enough not to be able to book their seats online, and ride the escalators up to Terminal One.
To the left is a small lounge with two couches and chairs along the walls for the comfort of travelers. To either side of the window, which looks out onto the tarmac and the jet liners, gimlet-eyed security robots eye them, shaped metal cylinders on treads with hemispherical heads on which cameras are mounted. Each has one standard utility arm on the left and a Hephaestus government-issue rifle on the right - automatic fire, a bolt launcher with taser bolts. Signs on the wall advertise flights to Europe, Africa, China, Australia, and the International Space Station - the last depicts one of the newer fusion-powered Icarus Spaceliners lifting away from its broad-winged first stage launch vehicle.
Ahead of them, a bored-looking security guard mans the entrance security desk, behind which security scanners divide the hallway into two halves, one for incoming traffic and the other for exiting. Each side has a humanoid security droid which halts random passersby and clarifies any anomalies that could represent a weapon or explosive device of some kind.
If all is going according to plan, around now Inari should be arriving in her private jet. Her MyUniverse channel is abuzz over this sudden departure, and some wonder if Inari is being written to by a past lover. 'Could he have known her before she got her fox op?' one fan wonders. 'Maybe it's her abusive dad! LOL.' Even now, her webchannel is streaming video of the golden vixen, dressed in mirrorshades and tough-looking black motorcycle leathers, ensconced in a leather-upholstered acceleration chair with a glass of something bubbly in her hand. Akiko is of course monitoring all this, dressed in one of the anonymous T-shirts and low hip-hugging jeans that Tracy stashed at his place - it makes her look quite a bit younger.
RIU peeks out from within Jason's trenchcoat, eying the plethora of airport security warily. Tracy and Cadena are farther behind, having arrived in the second car under autopilot - it has a return program as well. All of them have already established an encrypted comm channel, and Jason has provided Akiko a white noise generator.
Stifling a fake yawn, Jason saunters towards the security cordon. "Appear bored and boring. That's easy, because I'm both," he thinsk to himself as he looks about, trying to appear for all the world just a 'tourist' of sorts. Nevermind he's actually casing the defenses and what might ot might not be hackable for use later if need be. As he gets closer to the guards he waves once and mutters, "Evening."
The security guard wears a helmet with a visor, but as Jason approaches, the cloudy glass resolves enough for him to see the pleasant (if bored) smile. "Evening, sir. Just walk on through, ol' Gears here will let you know if you need to stop for an inspection."
"Ol' Gears" stands motionless, next to what looks like a gate between the banks of security monitors and scanners.
"Right. Seems a bit silly, but there are enough weirdos out there we need it. Better to catch em than have em walk in, I always say," Jason remarks as he walks through towards 'ol Gears'. He even holds his arms out a bit to make scanning 'easier'. "Kimon, check for access frequencies on their scanner system, please, through the ol' brain chip.." he relays back to his home 'computer'.
As a tired-looking businessman walks through from the opposite side, Jason can make out his skeleton on a display, tracing his movements exactly. Little hotspots identify energy cells that presumably belong to his PDA and implants.
Back at the base of the escalator, Tracy sticks close to Cadena.. and takes the stairs. Behind her mirrorshades, she keeps an eye out for any likely places to duck into for doing an identity swap with Inari. She's wearing the pre-programmed sneaksuit under her jumpsuit, and keeps her hands in her jacket pockets. The black wig helps hide her face a bit, which tends to keep down to look like a brooding teenager.
Akiko looks about nervously, left behind at the top of the escalator, then walks after Jason.
The nearby airport map identifies this as the entrance area to the hub of Terminal One. Past the security cordon would be a ring of stores and restaurants catering to the needs of travelers, and stretching from that would be the first set of gates, with airplanes docked at each. There should be bathrooms in both the hub ahead and the end of the walkway.
Kimon's voice comes through loud and clear to Jason, possibly due to the airport having its own wireless networking hub. "Software maintennance and diagnostic channels identified."
Cadena trots along after Tracy, suited up in his protective vest and electronics gear, with a holo protector feed on his back linked into the publicly-accessible airport channel, cycling through flight arrival and departure times, with pop-up reminders of prohibited items, tips on speeding passage through security, and the occasional advertisement for food court vendors, taxi services, and local hotels - the sort of thing just as easily accessible at any number of monitors throughout the complex. He keeps ears perked and alert for danger, but otherwise does his level best to look like nothing more than someone's personal service animal with a few trendy gizmos thrown in for good measure. He pauses and takes special care when stepping gingerly onto the escalator after Tracy.
"Analyse security on diagnostics channels, please," Jason thinks as he waits his turn to walk through. "Shutting down the actual scanners but making them register as active might be necessary later."
Kimon initiates a security probe. "Class 8 civilian-grade security detected. Author of record is Northrop Avionics, a subsidiary of Dantech Security."
"Noted. Cataloging for possible use later," Jason thinks. Stifling another yawn he finally goes through the security scanner to get it over with.
Ol' Gears surveys Jason as he walks through. "... Proceed," it says in a flat, clipped voice.
Jason salutes the security bot. "Yes sir, immediately, sir," he tells it, grins, and mozies on through!
The security guard's eyes go to Akiko as she comes up. "You're looking lovely tonight, miss," he says. She blushes.
"Hey, watch with the flirting," Jason inwardly grumbles.
Akiko proceeds through the scanner with trepidation, but Gears appears even less interested in her. "Proceed."
Tracy walks up to the security station, and asks, "Excuse me, but do your scanners use x-rays?"
As Tracy approaches, an Indian-looking gentleman dressed in a business suit dashes up the escalator from behind her. He stops behind her politely, if wheezily.
The security guard raises his eyebrow. "Another lovely lady on my shift! I'm so blessed." He winks, visible at close range to Tracy through the visor. "We use X-rays, Y-rays, Z-rays, and a few other rays of which I haven't been informed, miss. Gears can give you all the details. Is there a problem?"
As Cadena approaches the security display, he looks up and stops before the security robot. The holographic cycle on his display is interrupted, and shuts off, as a diagnostic light comes on. A new display appears, showing a schematic of all his incorporated gear, along with biometric data for Cadena himself, with a slowly rotating visual model, and ID. Most of the data blurs by too fast for anyone to have any chance of reading it, but it's largely a courtesy for the human security guard to make sure nothing suspicious is going on while the computers talk to each other.
The girl points to Cadena, and says, "I can't be more than a few meters from my support dog. Would we be able to go through together? And the rays won't mess with signals right?"
The guard nods. "Just go right on through, miss. Ol' Gears will sort it out."
"Okay," Tracy says, and heads for the robot.
Cadena's holo-display finishes cycling through the declaration sequence, and he patiently awaits, like a good dog, for the go-ahead to proceed.
"Kimon, scan airport for maintenance control signals. Try to isolate light, robot, and door controls please," Jason thinks as he continues to saunter on, making a lazy path towards the gates.
"C'mon Caddy," Tracy says to the canine.
Gears nods to the white dog. "Proceed." It turns its gaze toward Tracy and scrutinizes her carefully.
Kimon's voice responds. "Low-grade security network identified for lights and environmental control. Robots are on high-level encrypted security frequencies."
The nearby security droid swivels its head, tracking Jason.
Gears finally nods to Tracy after a few sweat-inducing seconds. "Proceed."
"Prepare to insert control programs into environmental controls. I'll signal when ready to begin," Jason thinks as he continues onward as if nothing at all is amiss.
"I feel like I've been ogled," Tracy tells Cadena as she walks with him through the security hall.
The Indian man steps through after Tracy and is about to follow her, when Gears raises its hand. "Halt," it says. The security guard checks his monitor. "Sorry, sir. Just a routine check." He stands and starts to pat the man down.
"Excuse me, but I'm late, I've got a flight to catch," the man protests. "Could you make it quick?"
Kimon's voice chimes. "Environmental control programs loaded from archives. Intrusion ready."
"Hello, what's this?" The guard pulls out a small snub-nosed gun. "Sorry, sir, I'll have to check this for you. You can pick it up on your return."
The Indian man looks alarmed. "But they told me-- ah-- I need that for self-defense! I am going overseas, and it is very dangerous," he claims.
Despite his protests, the Indian man doesn't get his gun back, and eventually the guard proclaims him "clean" and lets him through.
As Jason walks, he glances toward one of the many holographic arrival displays, checking on the status of the flight due in at 1E. "I bet there will be a mob of fans there," he thinks a bit crankily.
Gate 1E: PRIVATE FLIGHT - Arrival in 2 minutes.
"Let's head for the bathroom, Caddy," Tracy suggests, turning to the right. The restrooms are conveniently located right where Inari's plane is supposed to land, after all.
Cadena's flight arrivals/departures loop pops back on, on his holo display, as he trots after Tracy.
"Bleh, I was hoping for more time," Jason thinks and quickens his pace slightly. His plan is to plop himself down in a sofa between gates 1D and 1E ... then 'helpfully' augment the environmental controls. You never know when a disco needs to break out, after all.
The Indian man picks up his pace, looking disgruntled. He seems to be headed the same direction that Tracy and Cadena are.
Cadena quietly whispers to Tracy, "There are no overseas departing flights in this terminal listed for the next half hour."
Holographic ads light the inside wall of the shops and restaurants. One shop advertises "DUTY-FREE WEAPONS - Don't be without protection in a strangt country! G-Force: There When You Need It." The fine print reads, "All weapons are chipped and will not fire in the vicinity of the airport or on board the plane. Removing a weapon chip is a criminal offense and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!"
"What's that got to do with anything?" Tracy whispers back, not having paid attention to the person entering security behind them. She was too nervous about getting through herself at the time.
A Duamutef's Donuts plies tasty, high-starch and sugar goods nearby.
If anything, Tracy eyes the donut shop with more trepidation than anything else. "Try our Dimensional Portal Crullers, they can absorb a liter of coffee each," she mutters.
Cadena, rather than elaborating upon vague suspicions, just adds, "Let us be on general alert, then," and he continues along, as he keeps a watch out for any particularly suspicious activity.
The outside wall of the airport is clear durable plastic of some kind, offering an excellent view of the commercial WorldAir jetliner at the gate. Aircar technology has reduced the size of the engines so that they can be built right into the wings, but the overall silhouette remains the same, a bulbous main hull with wide-stretched wings, and windows for the passengers.
The airport seems relatively quiet with perhaps ten or twelve people in the nearby gates... And then there's the crowd at Gate 1E. They carry signs reading "We love Inari!" "Inari 4 President!" "INARI RUELZ!"
"Oh get a life! She's just a musician," Jason yells towards the crowd of fans with hints of annoyance in his voice. He rolls his eyes and heads towards a sofa now and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Ten seconds until control infiltration," he thinks to Kimon.
"Fans," Tracy notes with a frown, picking up her pace a bit and heading for the restrooms.
The window outside looks onto Inari's private jet now taxiing into place, a whole new level of sleek aerodynamic engineering. Though it's night, spotlights illuminate the Icarus logos on its body, and there's a stylized golden fox head on the tailfin. It comes to a halt, and a refueling truck zooms up to tend to its need while an operator extends the red-carpeted walkway to the plane.
Jason collapses down into a sofa and stretches his legs out as if getting ready for a nap. He still looks annoyed with the fans, but ... probably because it's going to interrupt his resting, right?
The Indian man dashes up to the crowd, then tries to look nonchalant, adjusting his suit and taking a deep breath. He glances over the gathered fans.
A disgruntled fan near Jason shouts back, "Inari's more than a musician, she's a way of life, man! Live like it's your last minute!"
"That's idiotic. You do that and it will be your last minute! Grow a spine and develop your own personality!" Jason quips back. "Kimon, dive and infiltrate environmental controls ... now." he thinks.
Akiko pauses, looking at the crowd. ... That's a lot of people. Her eyes turn toward the walkway.
Hurrying now (like she really needs to go), Tracy ducks past Akiko into the bathrooms, and first checks to see if the family changing one is unoccupied.
Cadena holds back just a bit as Tracy rushes in, standing guard ... but giving Ranesh a little extra attention, since for some reason the fellow has grabbed his attention just a little more than anyone else (seeing as this sure doesn't look like the likely destination of someone late for an outbound overseas flight).
In Jason's VR-scape, a wireframe schematic of the airport security takes shape. It resembles a giant phoenix encircled with moving walls of fire. Intimidating looking as the fire may be, the environmental controls that he wants to reach are only two layers deep, with more layers protecting the higher-security functions.
The Indian man mixes into the crowd and joins in with the cheering. "We love Inari!" he chants in ritual fashion. "We love Inari!'
"People always overlook the basic things, which are just lovely infiltration points. Just monitor the resonance of a light and you can sometimes decode voices from the sound wave vibration, Jason thinks. There's no style to this hack; time is limited so quick and deadly. Break the encryption later, then open a gate in the secondary wall...
The airport bathroom is antiseptic smelling but at least it's clean, not a speck of dust or mold to be seen. The women's bathroom appears empty with no one in the stalls, and the family baby-changing room is likewise vacant, with complementary diapers and sanitary hand-wipes available in tiny boxes.
"Ahem. Calling Sparky Dragon," Cadena says into his subvocal pick-up as he points himself (and his video pickup) toward Ranesh. "Please tap into my video feed. Individual I am looking at claimed to be late for an outbound overseas flight in security. Tried to get a snub-nose gun through security. Could be perfectly good reason, but wanted to give you a heads-up, in case."
After checking that the room is empty, Tracy enters the Family Restroom and throws the latch. She hurriedly removes her wig and pulls up the hood of the sneaksuit, then taps her earpiece and whispers, "I've got the family room," before starting to remove her outer clothing.
The volume of fannish squealing goes up as the hatch of the private jet opens and several camera robots zip through to take up position. A male and female in matching shiny black jumpsuits step through first, and then the familiar golden vixen face of Inari. She's here!
RIU beeps? inside Jason's trenchcoat.
"RIU, cloak and go monitor the guy Cadena is worried about," Jason instructs the bot. In virtuals-ace, his 'knuckles' crack and he dives towards the security!
RIU blips into invisibility! Jason feels a scaly presence slither out from under his trenchcoat and then presumably he's gone to monitor Ranesh.
Inari looks around coolly, and then lets her bodyguards preceed her into the airport. The camera robots zip around to monitor her from different angles.
Jason's cyberattack worms through the first level of security, but the system detects an outside presence and emits a wave of tracers!
In the bathroom, Tracy's boots, jumpsuit, jacket and wig get stuffed into a folding bag and squashed up in the fold-down diaper changing table. Then she takes a position behind the door, unlatches it, and gets ready to trigger stealth mode if anyone comes in.
Kimon advises Jason. "Intrusion in progress. 50% completion."
"Scatter decoys, location dispersal, worldwide. Distract tracers. Wall two, time to open up for me," Jason says as his virtual form goes blurry and dives towards layer two!
The layer opens up before Jason's hack-form, flames wisping out to become the green-ciphered black walls of the local control system. Kimon chimes. "Decoys successful. We have access."
"Inject full control over environmental systems, lights, fire, door looks, temperatre, speakers, everything," Jason thinks as he works fast in deploying his control programs. "Cadena, Tracy, there may be plants in the crowd," he sends though his comm-link, "That Idnian man is watching two others in the crowd. Something smells fishy. Be ready."
"Ready," Cadena subvocalizes over the communicator. "Please advise if I should approach further. Otherwise, remaining in position to assist my master."
The bodyguards exit the walkway and take up position on both sides as Inari walks up. She smiles at her fans, her predator-intense eyes going over each face until they rest upon Akiko... And then she glances back to the others, narrowing her gaze at the Indian man. "Well, what a surprise to find you all here," she says, her teeth tiny and sharp. "And here I thought I was going to be all alone by myself here."
The Indian man chants, "We love Inari! We love Inari!" His acting is terrible, however, it's as if he's reading lines off a teleprompter.
Akiko waves to Inari, smiling, then looks toward Jason, still apparently napping on the airport couch.
"RIU, be charged to bolt that man if he makes any agressive movements towards Inari, Jason instructs the stalking-dragon. "RIU has him covered, Cadena ... but be ready anyway. I have a bad feeling."
"Acknowledged," Cadena returns, on the alert, and maybe just a little bewildered at the sight of Inari and the wide-ranging nature of her audience. Somehow, he'd imagined her following to be ... different somehow?
Inari continues brightly, "I feel very welcome here in North Bend! But I hope you'll forgive me, it's been a long trip and I feel the need to... Freshen up." She winks, and then nods to her bodyguards. The male stays nearby, while the female breaks away and heads toward the bathroom.
Akiko whispers into her com, "Not that her private jet doesn't have a bathroom already." She hovers nearby, keeping an eye on Inari and her escorts.
"Talk to me.. is she coming alone?" Tracy whispers into the channel.
Kimon acknowledges Jason's instructions. "Standing by for instructions," it says.
Disperse," Jason instructs his system and the VRscape around him dissolves, leaving his vision back in the real world. He cracks open one eye and watches the whole 'rock star' thing. Also, realizing something, Jason checks the receiver-unit in his implant and listens for signals that might be being sent to Ranesh.
"On her way," Cadena subvocalizes into the shared channel. "Her lady bodyguard is clearing the way first."
Cheering Inari fans attempt to press close, to reach out and touch Inari, but the male bodyguard fends them off. "Make way, please! The Lady needs her privacy." The female bodyguard heads toward the bathroom but notices the large white dog nearby. "Excuse me," she says to Akiko. "Is this your dog?"
Inside the bathroom, Tracy activates stealth mode and vanishes. Then she keeps very very still.
"Asian woman on the right is moving forward," Jason murmurs into his comm-link. "Mr. Indian is watching her."
"Confirmed," Cadena subvocalizes. "I am pointing my video pickup so you may refer. Two individuals spotted. May be carrying snub-nosed pistols of same model described earlier." He focuses first on the asian woman, and then a "redneck"-looking fellow in the crowd. "Should I give personal ID to Inari's escort for security purposes?"
Inari continues to scan the crowd as her bodyguards clear the way slowly. Her gaze pauses over Jason looking distracted on his sofa, and the tip of her tongue appears on her muzzle, licking her nose briefly. She continues on however, perhaps not wanting to draw the fans' attention to him.
"Akiko, cover for Cadena?" Tracy whispers.
Akiko hesitates until Tracy prompts her, then smiles and moves closer to Cadena, rubbing his ears. "Oh! Excuse me, is he in the way, miss? Yes, he's mine. Isn't he just adorable?"
"Not yet. We don't want to tip any hands," Jason answers Cadena. He fakes another yawn and stretches. "Kimon, isolate that call the Indian has going and copy the communication signal to our communicators in listen-only mode." he thinks.
"Master," Cadena subvocalizes, "should I stay in position to accompany you, or move into position to intercept possible threats, should they act?" He then immediately looks up and wags his tail, tongue lolling. He drops on his haunches and raises one paw out, bobbing it as if offering to "shake."
"Intercept," Tracy decides. "I can sneak out, and I'm armored - the others aren't. But be careful not to block RIU's line of fire."
Kimon chimes. A low-level whispered conversation becomes audible. "... the heck is Inari doing now? Ranesh, Bryan, keep an eye on her, Marie, you've got a sudden urgent call of nature."
The female bodyguard chuckles and then shakes Cadena's paw. "Yes, he is cute, but could you please keep him under control? My client's coming through and we've had a few... canine-related incidents that I'd really like to avoid."
Cadena tongue-lolls, leaning into the ear-scritches and hamming up the part of just being a big happy harmless dog.
Akiko looks startled. "Oh really? How terrible! Don't worry, Caddie here will be good. ooh! Is that a REAL FOX?" She keeps a hand on Cadena's collar, though her grip is light and wouldn't hold him at all if he decided to make a move, and pretends surprise at Inari's appearance.
Cadena anxiously watches the people-with-suspicious-pocket-bulges, trying very hard just to look dumb and happy.
The female bodyguard sighs and smiles. "Yes, I take it you haven't heard of the world famous Inari?" Her tone somehow makes it sound like Akiko must be a real shut-in. She offers a black card with a gold foxhead on it. "If you'd like to learn more, you'll find a website on this card. Excuse me, I'm going to make sure the bathroom's clear."
"Everyone keep calm," Jason says into his comm. "We have to play this cool. Any sudden movements will tip off the security." Not that he doesn't feel twitchy himself, but...
The nearby security droids keep an eye on the procession.
The Chinese woman hurries toward the bathroom, "Excuse me, please," she says as she brushes by the bodyguard. "Very urgent!"
Tracy chews on her lower lip, hidden behind the mask of her sneaksuit. Great.. if I switch with Inari, are those three in the crowd extra Voya security or a hit team out to get her? I hope Inari knows, she worries.
Cadena tongue-lolls and extends a paw out to shake to the urgent Chinese lady. "Wurf!"
The Chinese womman oofs as Cadena's paw snags on her sleeve! "Excuse me, your dog's in my way," she says not looking up at Akiko, trying to disentangle him.
Cadena immediately whines and drops back, looking chastened, like he KNOWS he's been a bad doggy! "Confirmed. Individual is packing, heading into restroom," he sub-vocalizes.
The whispered audio conference call says, "Look casual, Marie. Pileup in front of the bathroom, happens all the time. Ranesh, Bryan, just take up position, be natural."
The female bodyguard smiles tightly. "Go on ahead, miss," she says. The Chinese woman sighs a breath of relief and then hurries into the bathroom.
"RIU, continue to follow out of sight, be prepared to stun as necessary. Confirmed weapons," Jason instructs his little dragon. Jason stretches out and pushes himself back to his feet. "For the love of everything, it's midnight, folks. I'm just waiting for a plane to arrive and trying to get some sleep. Can all of you please keep it down," he complains in a tired-sounding voice.
RIU beeps! (over the radio)
Cadena slinks back behind Akiko, trying to get back from the crowd. "Sparky Dragon, Master, anyone - are Inari's bodyguards informed of her plans? May I have permission to warn them of armed suspects? Unsure of how they'll react."
"I have no idea," Tracy whispers. "Can Kimon identify them as Voya security?"
Tracy's hearing picks up the Chinese woman as she enters the female bathroom. Luckily however, she doesn't seem interested in the changing room; instead she takes up position near (if Tracy is hearing this right) the sinks and becomes silent thereafter.
"Don't warn them directly," Jason tries to transmit, "Can you get one of the men to drop their gun? Kimon, can you identify the tree individuals? Access my visual interface for reference."
Kimon chimes. "Working... Affirmative. Ranesh Baliga. Marie Wong. Bryan Fosters." Information begins scrolling up, identifying them as local actors and scrolling through a list of multimedia appearances in which they've previously "starred" - if you can call commercials and public TV announcing to be starring roles.
"Three identified as actors. Likely Voya agents," Jason relays to the others.
The female bodyguard goes in to check the bathroom next, while Inari looks down at Jason's outburst. "Quiet, mister? I don't know about that, midnight seems like the perfect time to... ROCK!" She snaps her fingers and suddenly music blares from nowhere - or perhaps from speakers hidden in her motorcycle leathers. She favors Jason with a smirk, reaching out as if inviting him to dance.
Cadena's jaw drops.
"Woohoo!" "Inari's the best!" Fans break out into an impromptu dance as well, leaving the actors stunned before they clumsily try to follow suit.
Hiding in the family bathroom, Tracy resists the urge to laugh.
Ranesh says, "Um... We love Inari!" He starts doing the Robot dance.
Jason, however, doesn't resist the urge to laugh. "Lady, if you want to keep your look star appeal and fans, you would be better off picking someone to tease that doesn't have two left feet," he remarks as he walks right up to her. "But then with music like that, maybe it doesn't matter?" he counters with his own smirk and arched brow.
The male bodyguard boogies down waving his hands in the air before him, shuffling to both sides. Apparently this happens often enough that he's got an entire dance routine for it, but there's nothing quite like seeing a deadpan muscly bodyguard in an armored jumpsuit break out into dance in front of you.
Inari laughs, doing a spin so her tail brushes fluffily over Jason's hands. "Don't be such a sourpuss, stranger! Sometimes music's for the ears, sometimes it's for the feet!"
Akiko bites her lip, trying to keep from breaking out into laughter - or maybe tears - where she's holding Cadena's collar. "Subtlety, thy name is not Inari," she whispers to him.
Tracy really hopes Kimon is recording this off of Inari's webchannel. She also tries to listen for the female bodyguard.
The pirated audio conference call emits a groan. "Great, she's being improv again. Just deal with it, she'll get bored and move on."
The female bodyguard checks each of the stalls, then pushes open the door of the family changing room.
Next to the door, Tracy keeps very very still.
"Careful what you wish for," Jason chides, laughing, "I just might ruin your reputation. There are some things that can never be cured, and my terminal case of 'white boy's' syndrome is one of them." he does, however, make a grab for Inari's tail! That brings back memories. Of course they're of a undead infested ghost ship, but still, memories!
Zahnrad awws!
The tail whisks tantalizingly just outside Jason's grasp. Inari winks.
"It's hard to serve two masters," Cadena absently whispers, looking distant, before remembering himself and snapping back into "dumb-dog" mode.
Jason hmphs and crosses his arms. "You think you're so amazing," he complains. "I guess it's not hard to think that when you have fans like them..." he adds and thumbs towards Ranesh.
Inari laughs, then whisks Jason into a sudden dance move, tugging him close! She whispers into his ear, "Forget him. What's the plan?"
The female bodyguard glances around the changing room, but looks right through Tracy without seeing anything unusual. She proceeds past her and glances into the men's room, before returning to the women's room.
"Waugh!" goes Jason. And yes, he really does have two left feet when it comes to dance, but at least doesn't trip over himself in the process. In other words, he's keeping up! "A decoy is waiting for you in the dressing room. Tracy in a military grade sneaksuit and all that," Jason whispers while looking patently horrified to be hugged on camera! "Someone to lure off the people and cameras so you can slip out. Failing that, well ... lets just say I have control of most non-security related systems in this building. You think you can cause chaos? You're an amateur compared to me..."
Inari raises an eyebrow. "Oh really, is that a challenge?" she murmurs. "Well, your turn then." She dips Jason and for a horrifying moment he thinks that she means to smooch him - eep, fangs! - but instead she licks his nose and then lifts him up again.
The nearby security droids at gate 1D look at each other. There's a sense of random numbers being compared, and then the one on the right buzzes and moves forward. "Excuse us, sirs and madams, but airport noise ordinances prohibit loud music in the concourse. We request that you quieten your audio output."
"Kimon, isolate track playing on Inari's body-harness ... and play it on the airport announcement system will you? Make the windows shake," Jason relays to his home system. "Careful what you ask for, little foxy," he murmurs right back, lips drawing back into a devious smile. "The thing about chaos is that it requires a larger scale than just a personal speaker..."
The pirated audio conference call crackles. "Bathroom's clear," the female bodyguard's voice says. "Marie's in the female bathroom, I'll keep an eye on this side. John, guard the front." The male bodyguard stops dancing and subvocalizes his response. "Understood."
FOOM! Death-metal rock shudders all down the concourse and everyone looks up. They may have heard that up in the Towers. Inari winces, then laughs and snaps her fingers, turning it off. "Touche'." She lets Jason go, then makes her way to the bathroom.
Here goes, Tracy thinks. Hopefully her 30 minutes of studying Inari footage will be enough to let her fake her movements.
"I really don't see the allure," Jason tells the crowd as he wipes of his wet nose, then thumbs over his shoulder towards the retreating Inari.
The crowd of Inari fans rushing past look shocked at Jason's proclamation! "Hey, you got her to dance with you and you didn't like it?" says the red-haired young teenager. "What kind of mutant are you?" It looks like it could get ugly soon. Beaten to death by irate death metal fans, what a way to go.
Akiko whispers to Cadena, "Oh, he's asking for such a hitting!"
"It's hard to like it when you've got these two dancing even worse than me hanging around," Jason remarks, sounding unconcerned as he straightens out his coat. "I know I'm a bad dancer but ..." he adds, then motions towards Ranesh and Bryan, "Thes guys. Wow. They kill the mood."
Cadena absently nods sympathetically, though with the timing, it's perhaps unclear with whom he's agreeing.
Fortunately those two gentlemen are at a great enough distance not to have heard Jason's gibe, but the fans start an impromptu discussion of who had the best move, complete with bringing out their PDAs to view the 'instant replays'. Look, there's Jason's nose-smooch from Inari!
Inari flutters her hand at the fans goodbye as she disappears into the bathroom.
Jason wisely resists remarking that Inari will probably wreck the bathroom. Instead, he shakes his head and wanders over to the wall near Akiko and flops his back against it. "Really, is she all that?" Jason asks Akiko and waves his hand. "Should I feel honored?"
As Inari goes by, Cadena just looks the part, again, of a dumb dog, but not going out of his way to hinder her or shake a paw this time around.
Akiko punches Jason's shoulder. "You're such a jerk," she says, smiling up at him.
The security robot trundles back to its place, now that the loud music has ceased, and takes up station once again.
"Ow," Jason complains and rubs his shoulder. "I'm going to regret this in a day or two once my face is plastered over the net," he mutters to Akiko.
Cadena subvocalizes, "All right. I am unclear on my directions past this point. Whom do I accompany?" He casts sidelong glances up first to Jason, then Akiko.
Inari steps into the ladies' room. From here, Tracy cannot see her but can hear her footsteps as she approaches the door, then exchanges words with the female bodyguard. "Angelina, have you already checked the changing room?"
"Yes, ma'am," the bodyguard replies.
Tracy takes a deep breath, and watches the door closely.
Inari's expression is invisible. "Well then, give me my carry-on luggage and I'll just get changed," she says. "Can't let the fans down, after all."
Angelina replies, "No, ma'am. Of course not." The door clicks open.
"Not Tracy-Inari immediately," Jason transmits. "Just stay with Akiko until the crowd has followed the decoy ... then follow after them by scent. Find Tracy and then go with her when she makes the car-escape ... and out into the dregs and tunnels to find Randall."
Tracy blinks - carry on luggage? She wasn't expecting Inari to change outfits..
Inari steps through, one hand to her motorcycle jacket as she unzips it... And Angelina steps through after her, holding the carry-on bag. That must be why she has both male and female bodyguards - so someone can accompany her at all times.
"And RIU, return to me. I don't think you need to zap the flunkies..." Jason instructs the little dragon.
RIU beeps mentally, and scoots right back under Jason's trenchcoat. It snuggles up into his coat while replaying video images of Ranesh being the World's Worst Dancer, as if it were blaming Jason for making it watch that.
Cadena subvocalizes, "I will attempt to comply, but please beware that my ability to track via scent is inferior to specialized entities."
"If you fail we'll return you to the pound," Jason claims in the comm.
Ranesh reads a newspaper, fresh off the rack, while Inari fans gather around the door. In short order Inari is established as the best dancer (of course) but Jason, to their surprise, comes off pretty good despite his claimed lack of experience.
"I should have just hijacked the plane," Jason whispers to Akiko, "It would have been less of a spectacle..."
Still frozen in place, Tracy wonders how to proceed. Inari isn't alone, and she's changing. She could probably cover the suit with the new outfit and still have it work, but wouldn't able to go invisible then. This is a complication, she thinks nervously.
Inari nods to her bodyguard as she strips her jacket off to reveal a skin-tight jumpsuit beneath. "Angelina, dear, would you put that down and close the door?"
The female bodyguard places the bag on the baby-changing table, then turns to close the door.
With Angelina turned away, Tracy switches quickly over to the Inari disguise, hoping the real Inari catches sight of it in the mirror.
The actual Inari catches sight of Tracy, then grins seeing the military suit engage its light projectors to create optical illusions of ears, muzzle, and tail. Her eyes sparkle as if to wordlessly say, You're on, sister! She sets down the motorcycle jacket and moves to allow Tracy to step into her place, taking up a position out of the bodyguard's line of sight.
Tracy hurries forward, and stashes the jacket into the travel bag. She doesn't have an alternate outfit prepared, so tries to come up with an excuse for not changing.
Angelina turns and looks to "Inari", dressed in motorcycle leathers. "Is everything all right, Ma'am? Aren't you going to change?" she asks. The actual Inari waits patiently, watching to see what Tracy says.
The Voya security call crackles. Marie sounds bored. "Still in the washroom," she says. "Guess Inari's changing."
"At one time, hearing Inari is changing implied something more than just clothing," Jason remarks into the shared comm.
"Slight change, Angelina," Tracy bluffs, zipping the carry-on closed. "Something.. personal.. spilled open in there. I'm stuck with this outfit for now.. unless you want to trade?"
Akiko giggles a bit, leaning on Jason's shoulder as they wait outside the restrooms. She scratches under Cadena's chin, but he can tell that she's feeling tense, waiting for things to really hit the turbofans.
Angelina shakes her head. "No, ma'am. Will that be all, then?"
Handing the bag back, Tracy says, "Looks like it; time to shine for the cameras again!"
"How much do you bet that people try to sell clothing claimed to be 'Inari worn' on the net? Hm, this could be a way to pay for the repairs to my home," Jason remarks into the comm, perhaps in an attempt to not appear nervous himself.
The bodyguard accepts the bag. "Of course, ma'am." She opens the changing room door and steps out. At which time the actual Inari leans close and whispers into Tracy's ear, "I've got a few things in there that won't pass the scanner, dear. You might want to come up with a plan for that..."
Inwardly, Tracy hopes the extra jacket bulge isn't noticeable, and nods to Inari as she steps forward after Angelina. Of course, she doesn't actually have a plan just yet.
Angelina leads the way back out of the bathroom. Marie continues to silently occupy one of the stalls in the women's restroom. Thanks to the audio and video pickups from Cadena's collar, Tracy has a very good idea what's waiting for her outside...
The Voya security channel crackles. "Okay, she's on the way out. Look alive out there, folks! Ranesh, go stake out the concourse. Bryan, see anyone suspicious?"
"Yeah, that guy she was dancing with? He's waiting outside the restroom. With the dog and some cute Asian lady," Bryan subvocalizes.
The Voya security coordinator hmms audibly. "Could be she's made a fan. Just keep an eye on him."
Tracy-Inari waves to the crowd and declares, "I may not be able to play music here, but that doesn't mean I can't have heralds going on ahead and announcing me! And I'm always looking for backup singers, so let me hear you!"
"Whee, I'm now suspicious," Jason remarks into the comm. He sounds ... amused.
The Inari fans cheer! "We love Inari!" "Make way for Inari, Queen of Rock!" One or two burst into entirely unauthorized "covers" of her songs as they move out into the airport to form her forward line. This unfortunately draws the attention of the security droids, as they once again exchange meaningful looks.
Tracy figures that if they keep moving, they'll pass out of each droid's range of action before they can complain. She doesn't want a riot to break out, after all!
The male bodyguard steps to the side deferentially, falling into place.
"Whee yay, Inari. Music, whoo," Jason remarks from where he still leans on the wall. He even twirls his index finger like a little flag. He does not follow.
Cadena subvocalizes, "Ms. Summers, perhaps we should relocate, so we are not pegged as associates of Mr. Edwards?"
During one of the cheers, Tracy whispers into her comm, "We need the duffel bag."
As they march along, "Bryan" eyes "Inari"'s tail suspiciously, then frowns. Something seems off to him.
Akiko gets up and walks along to continue observing "Inari"'s coterie.
Cadena, as he trots after Akiko, subvocalizes, "Master, I see a travel bag in the hands of Ms. Bodyguard. Am I to interpret this as a command to acquire the bag and to exit the premises with it? And if so, what priority of emergency is this, so that I may gauge what level of risk is acceptable to carry out this directive?"
Why does he asks such a complicated question? Tracy wonders, and times her next whisper when the crowd is loud. "Get bag back to Inari," she whispers.
"Tracy, the tail isn't reflecting the light right. One of the Voya guards is eying it. You'd better distract him. If you can't, well ... I might have to do something drastic..." Jason notes into the shared comm.
The Inari fans are loudly "heralding" 'Inari' as she approaches the concourse. A few are air-guitar-ing.
"Assumption that drastic measures are required. Understood." With that, Cadena tugs forward, looking a bit less-behaved than a dog should be, as he lurches toward.
Great, Tracy thinks. "I'm getting a weird vibe, Angelina," she says to her bodyguard. "If I need to run, drop the bag and stick with me."
Angelina frowns. "That geek you danced with? Is he giving you the look?" She glances back over her shoulder.
Jason watches Cadena dart off ... and rubs his face. "Right," he mutters, then beats his head softly on the wall behind him. "Kimon, prepare to initiate a fire drill using the environmental controls, complete with flickering lights and sprinklers. We may need the cover soon..."
Akiko eeps as Cadena takes off! She role-plays his owner, "Caddie!" and hurries after him.
"Dogs make me nervous," Tracy claims. "If it smells what spilled in my bag, it'll.." she starts to say, and then breaks into a run when she sees Cadena coming after her!
Slim black gloved hands go over Jason's eyes. "Guess who," a familiar voice whispers into his ear as Akiko dashes off.
"Wurf!" Cadena says, as he bumps first into suspicious-bodyguard-guy, and then into one of the older fans who seems to be wearing an impractically-fancy dress for the occasion.
Jason goes completely stiff. "Ernesto Falliupte," he claims as the identity of the source of the hands over his eyes.
Kimon's voice chimes. "Fire drill protocol standing by," it responds.
Inari giggles. "Do I look like an Ernesto to you? Well, if that's what you want..." RIU wiggles in Jason's trenchcoat as he feels an electric tingle nearby.
Tracy dodges past her heralds, and runs towards Mr. Indian and one of the float-cameras at the corner of the concourse, heading towards Terminal 1.
The fans, totally startled, break in all directions! The female bodyguard does as "Inari" instructs, dropping the bag and running to catch up with her.
"Ha ha. No, you don't," Jason remarks and reaches behind himself to try and poke Inari. "And did you have to lick my nose? On camera?" he mock-complains as he tries to turn around and actually spot the crazy former-Avatar.
"Eeep!" screams the woman startled by Cadena.
The male bodyguard glances back at the dog, then holds one hand to his earpiece. The Voya security channel crackles. "Bryan! Get over here and guard the bag! Ranesh, Marie, go, go, go!"
As Jason turns, he sees... Well, that's certainly not Inari. It's a fat Italian gent with thick handlebar mustaches, dressed in overalls. "Me? Would Ernesto Falliupte do a thing like that?" he protests in a broad accent. "Unpossible!"
Bryan stumbles as Cadena thumps heavily against his legs en route. As he recovers, he yells. "Hey! Watch where you're going, mutt!"
"You have just ruined every dream I have ever had. That's ... rather impressive really. You da man," Jason deadpans, then laughs. "We better circle around the other way ... because Tracy is causing a mess. I'd rather we not get caught in the middle of it all. And as a warning, I hope what you're wearing can get wet..." So .. Off Jason goes in the opposite direction of the chaos!
The male bodyguard grabs at the bag, trying to snatch it up before the dog gets to it - but to no avail!
Akiko pursues Cadena with pauses to apologize to Bryan and to the fan that he jostled. "I'm so sorry! I don't know what's gotten into Caddie!"
The white dog drops on his haunches, and slides across the floor, rear paws flailing, and then he snatches the bag in his mouth. He then skid-skid-skids his paws on the slick polished floor for purchase as he does an about face and runs the other way!
'Ernesto' grins and chases after Jason. "You had dreams about me? Well, I never!"
Disguised, Tracy still makes her mad-dash towards Terminal 1. She just needs to duck around a corner before the cambots can catch her..
Over the Voya security channel, Cadena hears, "Grab that dog! He's got her bag!" Marie turns and tries to catch him!
Inari fans look stunned as "Inari" easily outpaces them, dashing down the airport concourse. Angelina struggles to catch up; meanwhile the male bodyguard draws his gun and tries to line up a shot. Voya security breaks in, "John! Don't be a nut! Do you know what airport penalties are like if you fire a weapon in here?!"
"And dressed like that, it's no wonder you never," Jason retorts, amused. "And I should have known Tracy would cause a scene. Oy. This was supposed to be covert ... not snatch a bag via doggie! And did you have to lick me? That's going to be all over the net!"
The Chinese woman grabs at the bag, but unprepared as she was emerging from the bathroom, she's way too slow for Cadena!
Cadena skids and slides underneath the lady, slips and skids his paws again as he tries to alter his trajectory to dash off in the direction of Jason and that strange man accompanying him.
"Ernesto" laughs as he puts distance between them and the crowd of fans. "Is that your dog?" he asks conversationally, as they're moving. "It's got my bag."
"Tracy's dog. Tracy told it to grab the bag. I have no idea why and ... ack, is it coming this way?" Jason says.
Cadena casts a mournful, confused, lost look at Jason as he scampers by, desperately looking for some nice hidey-hole big enough....
Bryan breaks into a run after the wayward bag. Voya security: "The mutt's getting away!"
A security droid yells as Tracy runs by, "Sir or madam! Please do not run in the airport. Running with reckless disregard for others is prohibited by civil ordinance 50-1250A..."
"Glah gluh glah glah!" comes the signal from Cadena's subvocal pickup. Alas, the running and grabbing things with his mouth don't contribute toward giving the mic an intelligible signal to pick up on.
The camera bots whoosh climbing in the air after "Inari"! One can almost imagine the headlines: "WILD DOG CHASE IN NORTH BEND AIRPORT."
The male bodyguard hurries after the bag-chompin' Cadena, along with Bryan Fosters. "Stop that dog!" he yells at Akiko, who looks frantic. "He just stole Inari's bag!"
"Remember what I said about chaos?" Jason remarks to 'Ernesto' as he watches poor Cadena. "Well, I control the horizontal and the vertical ... and with a snap of my fingers, let chaos reign." And indeed, he does snap his fingers. "Kimon, engage fire alarm protocol," he instructs his 'personal computing companion'.
Kimon chimes. "Engaging."
Adding to the confusion, the fire alarm sirens begin howling! Sprinklers overhead start whirring, scattering water all over everything, and lights spaced every fifty feet start flashing.
The white dog skids out as he tries to hug the curvature of the terminal's circular layout, bag still hanging precariously from his mouth.
"Alarms active, everyone head head towards the fire exits," Jason says into his comm.
The stunned Inari fans gather in a cluster. "Is this what an Inari appearance is normally like?" one says. Another one claims, "Nah, this is quiet," but anything else they might have said gets lost in the din.
Before the floor can become too slick from the sprinklers, Tracy dashes around the corner into Terminal 1, leaps behind a security robot, and triggers the stealth mode on her sneaksuit.
"Ernesto" points to the left, on the inside wall. "There's a fire exit," he says to Jason. "What say we make tracks?"
"I say that sounds like a marvelous idea!" Jason agrees ... and heads towards the exit!
The white dog dashes up to the fire exit as well, rearing up on his hind legs and slamming the release bar with both fore-paws.
Tracy jumps behind the security robot... Which swivels to face her, even as she engages the full invisibility mode! It says, "Excuse me, sir or madam, but please do not run in the airport." It continues to reel off the ordinances that she may be violating if she continues to engage in reckless conduct.
Hampered by the sprinklers, Angelina and Ranesh's pursuit are hampered, but the camerabots whoosh out into the atrium and start scanning the area. Now where did their Inari go?
Seeing as how a bunch of people are about to run around the corner after her, and possibly draw weapons.. Tracy doesn't feel inclined to reply to the robot.
The fire exit thunks open! Normally this would trigger an alarm... But the fire alarm is already going. Musty air spills out into the airport from the stairwell beyond.
Akiko, considering the tactical options, decides now's a good time to retreat into the bathroom and catch up later.
Cadena dives through the fire exit and immediately drops the bag outside it - then dives back in to continue running.
"Ernesto" snatches up his bag as he dives through!
Over their shared communication channel, Jason can pick up Akiko's voice. "Tracy, are you okay? Do you need backup?"
Jason just ... follows after Ernesto! "Tracy, this is not covert. Some ninja you are," he complains into the comm, "Akiko, are you okay? We're out the fire door. Oh, uh, I guess you are okay?"
The security robot finishes, "Please step away from the security robot. It is prohibited by law and municipal ordinance to interfere with the operation of security robots in the course of their duties." It eyes 'invisible' Tracy severely.
Tracy moves away from the bot, hugging the wall. She spots a vent overhead.. but the cameras are already out, and any movement she makes under the sprinklers will break her camoflage. She starts to move back towards the corner instead.
As Tracy moves away, the security robot turns back to monitor the airport atrium.
A narrow escape! As Tracy sidles away from the robot and back the way she came, she almost gets plowed into by Angelina Joy, who is running pell mell (despite the sprinklers) to try to catch sight of "Inari". Angelina frowns, looking both ways, hand over her eyes to shade them from the drizzle, then speaks into her headset. The Voya security channel crackles. "Emergency, all agents! We've lost Inari! Spread out and track her down."
"Ernesto" laughs, dropping his disguise. The illusion shimmers away to reveal Inari's foxform. She shoulders her bag and starts hiking down the stairwell. "You have a well-trained doggie," she tells Jason.
Bryan and the male bodyguard pause as they listen, then abandon their chase of the white dog. "Roger that," the male bodyguard says over the channel.
The Inari fans dash into the nearest store to try to avoid the drizzle outside.
"I think I prefer that look over Ernesto. It's good to see you, Inari," Jason says, grinning. "Lets get you out of here. The fire exist should lead outside of the building. The others should be safe as long as they play up the confused traveler act. This could have gone better, but ..."
A minute or so of creeping later, Tracy regroups with Akiko and Cadena in the women's bathroom (luckily, there's no one to yell at Cadena about being of the incorrect gender, even if they were inclined to check). Inari and Jason make good their escape, emerging into the open field of the airport.
Cadena pants as he gets back to the bathrooms, diving into the women's room, swiveling the hand-dryer vent downward, slapping the activator panel, then standing underneath it. "Cadena here," he subvocalizes, then pauses to get some more breath. "Back at the bathroom. They don't seem to be chasing me. Are you all right, or do I need to provide further distraction?"
"We've got a couple cars out in the lot, " Jason says, visibly relaxing now that they're mostly 'home free'. "And what was so important in the bag that Tracy and her dog went to all that trouble?"
After changing back into her regular jumpsuit and wig ensemble, Tracy asks, "So, should we just walk out the way we came in? And do you want to borrow my jacket, Akiko?"
The Inari MyUniverse channel is alive with up-to-the-minute speculation. INARI DISAPPEARED! Fans are, even this minute, going over the camera records to try to figure out what happened.
Inari smiles over at Jason. "Oh, a few things I thought would be useful. And as for the nose lick..." She leans over and licks his ear, causing RIU to complain about the female invading his territory. "I felt like it."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-02-20-tracy-in-trouble.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 1:00 AM Eastern
Just last night, Tracy's life was normal, asides from the new dog - now she's sneaking through an abandoned subway system with a hundred thousand newdollar reward on her head, toward what's marked on her map as a maintenance station.
Their car is parked a little bit back down the tunnel; with luck if there are any soldiers present and they're called out, they'll miss seeing it. If not... Well, as her mother keeps telling her, she needs to be unpredictable. Up ahead, Tracy can see the enormous rig that's used to lift subway cars or other heavy loads up from the tracks and rotate them to slide into the garage for maintenance. Pedestrian stairs and a vehicle ramp also lead up from the base of the tunnel to the elevated subway station floor.
To her side is Cadena, wearing his kevlar harness, and just behind her is Akiko, wearing a distinctly un-chic G-Motors Self Defense bulletproof vest over her T-shirt and jeans, and a backpack containing some "useful" things she picked up from the G-Mart. They are very definitely not well enough armed if Mav's Mavericks happened to leave a large number of armed mercenaries behind... But with luck, Jason's distraction at his rendezvous will draw off most of the soldiers.
The sounds of heavy servomotors comes from up ahead. Something heavy is clomping about. That can't be good.
Akiko frowns. "Do you hear machinery?" she whispers.
Licking her lips Tracy checks her power meter to see just how much she was able to recharge the suit while in the car (for some reason, she keeps worrying over it). Then she closes the hood and whispers to the others, "I'm going to see what's making the noise." A moment later, she's effectively invisible as she turns on the stealth mode of the suit.
"Mind the security robot," Cadena subvocalizes over the communicator. "Judging from the sound, it is armed with an HMG, gatling type, and has is keeping the barrels in active spin to avoid having to spin-up before it can react. Or that's what it sounds like, at least."
The suit plays a series of descending chords into Tracy's ears to reinforce that it's actually doing something. Akiko and Cadena do not hear anything, but they do see her grey jumpsuit ripple and then become an almost perfect copy of the wall behind her.
Tracy sneaks around the corner and halfway up the stairs until she can peek over the platform to see the robot and various closed doors it appears to be guarding. "Okay.. yeah, it's a big robot," she confirms in a whisper, and checks for other activity, including light leaking out from the door frames.
The Einhorn Crowd Protection Mecha swivels its gaze around suspiciously. Or perhaps Tracy's just anthropomorphizing it. It's a large armored capsule on two giant legs, one gun-arm mounted on its right side and a normal utility arm on its left side. The hull has been painted khaki, but green splotches of paint obscure the logo and numbers that would identify the military force from which it came.
"According to the suit readout, it's an Einhorn Crowd Protection Mecha," Tracy relays, along with salient features like which side the gun is on. "Do either of you know how to turn it off?"
"No," Cadena subvocalizes. "That's a fairly common model, but unless it's an especially obsolete version still in service, or a hack job, it should have its own onboard central process with Red Level 6 security even if you could somehow manage to directly plug in to access it. It's likely to take orders from an external computer, likely located somewhere within its base, though given the possibility of repeaters, there's no way of knowing whether that would be on-location, or elsewhere."
Akiko frowns. "Level 6 security is a little tough... Especially if it's Red. Is there maybe an alternate route we can take? Or can we sneak around it?"
"It is conceivable," Cadena adds, "that its standing orders could include recognition of designated personnel authorized to alter its instructions, but without knowing who, and data about their appearance, voice print, code words, and so forth, I don't imagine we could easily exploit that with the technology available. As for alternate routes..."
The robot stomps toward the train loading/unloading system, in front of the warehouse, and begins scanning there.
"It's closer than I thought - Akiko!" Cadena subvocalizes. "Get to cover QUICKLY!" He springs into action, pushing Akiko back and to the wall, as he hears the heavy clomping of the security robot coming about.
The robot has no visible expression, but it pauses on the rightmost part of its scan, fixing its gaze upon the tunnel. Was that a noise?
Since her suit recognized it, Tracy figures it may know more about the robot's senses as well. She goes through the virtual controls to see if the robot has a good chance of spotting her or not. "It moves fast, be care-" she starts to say, pausing when the mechanical monster seems to notice something.
The Kevlar-vested dog crouches low amidst the scant debris, huddled close to Akiko, breathing controlled and hushed, muscles tense and ready to spring to cover the human, should the shooting begin....
Akiko whispers over the intercom, "Thanks, Cadena! That was close."
Cadena is unresponsive, keeping as still as he can manage, relying on the indirect senses of his ears and keeping his face hidden, rather than putting a pair of bare eyes at risk that might be picked out by a security robot's facial pattern recognition system.
The robot pauses, then starts stomping back the way it came, but it seems to be moving more quickly or directedly than a simple patrol would indicate. Could it be making for the vehicle ramp?
"I think it's heading down to the tracks," Tracy hisses. "Run for cover!"
Cadena subvocalizes, "We're exposed here--" at about the same time, but drops that thought at Tracy's command. He scans the area for any clues of what sort of threat he might be dealing with, and spies only a few random bullet holes and burn marks on a wall, but no signs of dead subway wildlife or other trespassers that would hint at just how trigger-happy the robot might be. Not that it would alter his plan. He noses Akiko. "Move back!" he subvocalizes, as he tries to herd her back around the corner.
Akiko squeaks! She breaks into a run for the turn-off. Maybe if they can make it around the corner, they'll be able to hide.
The 'borrowed' getaway car makes the utility access tunnel a pretty tight fit, but Akiko squeezes in against the wall. She holds her breath, trying not to let her gasping give her away.
Cadena winces at the "squeak," and dashes after Akiko, ducking around the corner and pulling his tail after him. "Not much elsewhere we can go if robot's patrol extends this far," Cadena subvocalizes. "Not even sure how we got this close without it noticing the vehicle. Perhaps its patrol extends further in the other direction, and we lucked out to come down here while it was returning to center?"
Noticing something now that the robot is looking 'down' towards the ramp, Tracy bites her lip and starts to move up onto the platform, so that she can be close to the robot's head if it goes down into the tunnel. She's seen that parts of the sentry are still exposed: it wasn't completely assembled before being put on duty!
The robot continues to move down the ramp, its head turned and fixed on the spot where it heard the noise.
"Proposed plan for consideration," Cadena subvocalizes. "If security robot comes to hiding position, I leap, act as distraction, while Akiko rejoins with Tracy, continues mission. I do not anticipate ability to disable robot, but may be able to keep it occupied for long enough for humans to get to safety. Not sure how other defenders will react to discovery of my presence, but might not take it as serious threat if no other humans detected?"
Akiko tries to slow her breathing. Cadena and Tracy hear her subvocalizing without meaning to, "Think happy thoughts. Think calm thoughts. Sunlight. Beach. Quiet. Petting Inari."
Cadena's eyebrow furrows at that, as he boggles at the imagery conjured, but he says and subvocalizes nothing, instead intently listening in on the audio pick-up from Tracy and wondering just WHAT is going on there....
Drawing her vibroblade from its pocket, Tracy thumbs on the power switch as she takes a running leap towards the robot - mentally picturing it to be a pommel horse. She arches over, grabs the left shoulder with her left hand, and brings the rest of her weight down on the blade as she drives it into the exposed back of the robot's head.
Cadena subvocalizes, "Ah ... Master? Er, Tracy? I hear lots of noises. Are you being attacked? Are you all right?"
"Busy stabbing," is Tracy's quick reply.
The robot shorts! The exposed wires and pipes let loose a shower of blue sparks. "Wa--" Another quick strike cuts the vocal wire before it can finish alerting the base.
The Einhorn Crowd Protection Mecha is now silently stomping around, flailing at the air trying to identify and eliminate its attacker.
"Okay.. now I've done it," Tracy laments, holding on with her legs and one gecko-glove.
Akiko 'yells' into her comm. "Tracy! Are you okay?"
"I must save my master!" Cadena bolts from his hiding place, intent upon saving Tracy from ... being stabbed, electrocuted, shot, or whatever other horrible things are going on right now.
Akiko looks alarmed as Cadena takes off. "Tracy! Cadena's going in!"
"I don't know if this thing is disabled enough to not shoot!" Tracy replies, as she tries to find a way to disconnect or jam the robot's ammunition feed.
"Do not worry, Tracy!" Cadena pants, "I will draw its fire away from you!"
"What? It can't shoot me, I'm on its back!" Tracy helpfully yelps.
"I am not certain that is sufficient impediment," Cadena pants back.
The robot continues to flounder around! It emits pathetic sparks, twisting and turning in place.
Cadena continues dashing madly along the tunnel walkway, between the wall and the subway car tubes, rushing past the personnel stairs. He keeps beneath the platform edge for what cover it might provide as he dashes for the main vehicle ramp - and the jolting, sparking security robot thrashing about upon it.
Letting go of the vibroblade, Tracy reaches into another pocket to draw out the taser and switch it to 'contact' mode. "Gonna try to burn out.. something," she announces.
Cadena rushes up to the robot, diving between legs, spinning about, but not barking, trying to make himself a confusing target for the robot to try to track, all while he looks for some sign of where his master might be hiding.
The robot threshes about, paying no attention to the dog running around its legs. Servos clack and whine.
Akiko thinks, unaware that her subvocalizing is making her words come out over the comm. "Think calm thoughts. Think Inari thoughts. Think... Inari! Inari wouldn't hide." She rolls out from the cover of the tunnel and heads determinedly for the fray.
Cadena, narrowly avoiding being stomped underfoot, nonetheless continues running circles and loops around the robot and in between its legs, trying to put it off-balance enough to step off the ramp, or some other mishap....
The robot narrowly manages to keep its balance despite the proximity of a dog. Sparks and crackles emit from the wire that should have connected the speaker - presumably if it could talk, it would be warning Cadena that he was in danger of being stepped on.
On the robot's back, Tracy still struggles to find a good spot to use the taser, without being thrown off or wasting a charge. "Stand still, stupid robot.." she mutters.
"Tracy!" Cadena subvocalizes, in between moments of being underfoot. "Are you all right? Don't give away your position if you are hiding - I don't see any blood."
"I'm riding the robot, haven't been injured," Tracy replies.
Akiko runs pell mell up the passenger stairs, her Naginata Laser drawn! She pants as she reaches the top of the elevated platform, on level with the robot's head - and catches sight of Tracy flailing wildly with her taser! "Hang on, Tracy!" she subvocalizes.
Cadena continues to dive and dart about, perplexed as the robot seems to anticipate and deftly avoid him while maneuvering. "I do believe this model could be taught to dance, with the proper programming."
With a yell, Tracy jams the taser into the exposed electronics and pulls the trigger, hoping that if its not in contact, proximity to the spark should cause some inductive damage at least..
ZORCH! The taser unloads deadly electricity into the robot's circuitry. With a sigh, the Einhorn Crowd Protection Mecha shuts down. Fweeeoooooo...
"About time," Tracy grumbles, as she secures her taser and retrieves her G-Tool blade. "Is everyone okay?"
Cadena scrambles from underneath the robot. "To my surprise I am unharmed. I have new faith in the Einhorn corporate motto - their pledge to 'tread lightly' upon the Earth." He ducks his paw and gives a quick bow to the robot. "I apologize for the necessity of our interruption of your mission, and hope that you will be repaired and returned to service again some day."
Akiko's hand looks shaky as she aims the Naginata Shadow toward the robot, then lowers it gradually. "I'm okay," she whispers. "You're lucky that thing didn't stomp you flat! Either of you!"
"At least it didn't shoot, and nobody has run out to see why it stopped talking," Tracy notes, climbing down from the hulk and turning her attention on the doors. The one closest to Akiko, furthest from the big doors looks like the best bet to her.
Cadena subvocalizes, "We should seek cover immediately. We have no way of knowing whether or not the robot had a 'dead man' connection to set off an alert if it lost contact with the system, or if it might have transmitted a wireless warning already."
There's no sign of activity from the base. As yet. The large doors have light shining through the cracks beneath and between them, and the side door for the lobby is darkened.
Cadena growls, then says, "There's a camera, just over there in the corner, overlooking the entrance. If anyone has been watching, we're already spotted. Maybe no one is watching the live feed - or maybe they're understaffed and whoever's inside is taking up a defensive position. I have no way to know, but either way we might not have much time."
Akiko closes up with the others, eying the silently panning camera. "The green light's on, that's good, right? It'd turn red if it had spotted us, like in the games?"
"Why would it let you know if you were spotted?" Tracy replies, and goes to see if the door is actually locked or not.
Cadena furrows a brow. "A fake security camera, perhaps, for show? But why would anyone invest in that if they could get a security robot?"
The white dog goes up to the door, pressing an ear to it.
The dog paces along, checking at each door, then trots back to Tracy. "More than one person inside the large warehouse, talking. They sound calm - I can only hope that means they're not alarmed yet. I don't hear anything in the lobby. Not sure about the middle area; doors might be too thick for me to make anything out."
Cadena sighs. "If your friend Jason were here, I'm sure he would have befriended the security robot by now, and it could simply go in and take care of everything for us."
Akiko lifts an eyebrow. "I'm not in Jason's class," she murmurs. "But I know a few tricks. I could try to do something with its programming."
"Okay, best to go in through this small door then," Tracy notes. She gets out her lock-picking kit and goes to work. "I don't think the robot is gonna be of much use anytime soon though.."
The cheap lock falls prey to Tracy's skills in no time at all. It clicks open onto a dusty old lobby that smells of machine oil and cheap beer.
"Here we go," Tracy whispers and slips into the darkened room.
Cadena frowns. "I hate the thought of leaving anyone exposed, but if this is what we found outside, I'd guess odds are high that anyone inside is heavily armed as well. Is there any way you could quickly assess the damage and see whether it's a lost cause?"
Akiko points up to the camera. "Tracy, can you do something about that? If you want me to look at the robot that is, and see if I can hack into it."
The dog involuntarily jerks as the door seems to open of its own accord. "Master? Tracy? Are you still here?" His ears perk and swivel, listening for breathing, as he absently sniffs the air.
"Yes, Caddy, I'm inside the.. it's a lobby. Waiting for my eyes to adjust better," Tracy notes.
"Akiko, I regret that it seems my master is not in a position to work on the camera," Cadena reports, and then he drops to a low crouch and sneaks his way into the lobby. "Although," he continues, subvocalizing, "taking out the camera would be useful in its own right, should anyone view the feed and wonder what is up with the robot."
Akiko frowns. "Okay, I don't have too much experience with security systems, but let me see..." She kneels beneath the camera and takes off her backpack, which turns out to contain a medikit and a set of multi-purpose tools.
Moving carefully, Tracy first tries to see if there are security monitors behind the main desk.
Akiko works on the camera, her tonguetip sticking out from between her lips. It's not quite cooperating with her, it appears. She attaches electrodes to the circuits and then digs out her PDA and starts tapping away on it.
Cadena offers, "I don't know if it will help, but I am equipped with a K-9 Storm Collar."
Sure enough... There are several security monitors. One shows the defunct robot, another shows the employee breakroom (vacant and dark), and a third shows the train workshop, which is full of complicated heavy-looking machines... And five men gathered in front of a large sleeping ice wyvern! Four of them are - wonder of wonders - playing cards, while the fifth is covering them with what looks like a heavy machine gun. And is that Randall in the cards-playing group? He's unarmed, while the other thugs have pistols of some kind.
"Okay, you can ignore the camera and come in here," Tracy tells the others. "Randall, Mara and five guys are in the big room. One has a machine gun, Randall is.. playing cards.. and Mara looks knocked out."
Akiko pauses. "Now you tell me? I was just about to totally ace this cheap excuse for a security system," she says, her PDA displaying the rotating walls of the camera's logic.
"Well.. sorry?" Tracy replies. "Going to check out the middle room and see if there's any sneaky way into the big one. Or maybe find some gas grenades or something else.. these guys did steal a load of stuff from Eagle after all."
Cadena gives a canine shrug, then slinks in, looking around (and failing) to find Tracy, though he checks out the security monitors. "We don't know if anyone else might be able to monitor these remotely, even if no one appears to be reacting to our presence now." He looks at the HMG-carrying thug and the others, then to the display of the disabled robot. "Seriously, if there's any realistic way that robot could be on our side, we could use the help. I do not have the technical expertise to gauge the likelihood of that, however."
Akiko says over the com, "It could be fixed, these things are usually built tougher than a truck, I just need time! Do you want me to take a crack at it?"
The middle room used to contain parts and supplies like coolant and oil for the trains. Now it contains crates upon crates of stolen weapons and ammunition. There may very well be gas grenades somewhere around here - if Tracy can find them!
"Yeah, see if you can fix the speaker," Tracy suggests. "If you can make it say stuff, we can use that as a distraction to get them out of the warehouse, maybe. Or just as a loudspeaker. 'This is Irongrip, we're here for our goods,' or something."
Assured that the thugs aren't watching the camera, Akiko goes to start working on the damaged robot.
Cadena watches the monitors. "Should I remain here and watch for signs of movement, or other developments on the monitors, or should I follow you? Please let me know how I may best be of service, master."
Tracy goes to check the door to the middle room. "Stay here for now, until I'm sure it's safe. I need to see what's available here and what other ways I might be able to sneak into the big room there are," she tells Cadena.
Randall appears to be losing at cards, judging from the stack of chips in front of him that is slowly diminishing while the others grow. Though perhaps it's just a ruse.
"Acknowledged," Cadena replies. "Hmm. I wonder what the chips might represent? Or if something happens when he runs out?" He then turns his attention to the sleeping ... wyvern? He cocks his head to one side, examining the creature, trying to make sense of its strange form.
Mara continues to slumber. She's a weird mix of an ice wyvern of some kind with police spinner-styled armor, but the missile that struck her has ravaged her hind flank, exposing servomotors and fuel lines, covered with some kind of plastic goo to staunch the flow of fluids. Wait-- as Cadena studies the monitor, he notices one of her pale yellow eyes slit just slightly open, watching the gangsters.
"Master, do you have any equipment for picking up video feeds from me?" Cadena subvocalizes, focusing upon the room monitor. "I think the large cyborg might be operational."
Akiko reports in on the com, "I think I've got a grip on it. Tracy didn't actually do too much damage to the robot, just damaged the CPU. I can get it operational but it'll be under manual control. Or I can try to hack the feed and make it send a fake alert..."
Cadena's ears perk at "got a grip on it," but droop at "damaged the CPU."
Duffy wurfs, "Anyway, you can go where you like and you can even crack open crates, but do a Computers roll (d6) if you want to try to locate some specific kind of equipment to use!"
"Mara's awake? Okay, that's good. It means we just have to get the guy with the gun to point it in a different direction," Tracy notes, and then determines that the only real security is the robot and the cameras. She starts poking around the warehouse, looking for a manifest.
The camera watching the front shows Akiko almost out of sight, using the robot's body as cover, as she putters away. "Hello? What do you want me to do with ol' Einie?"
"You said the CPU was damaged," Cadena notes. "Is it a multi-processor unit? That is, does it have a dedicated processor devoted toward handling locomotion separate from its motivational circuitry? Or ... is it all together and all damaged? I'm just concerned that if it's entirely manual, without any computational assistance, keeping such a machine upright, let alone maneuvering it, would be a considerable challenge."
"Do you have complete manual control?" Tracy asks. "I mean.. can you make it fire the gun?" She first starts looking for body armor among the crates, since Randall will probably need some.
Akiko replies. "There are a few sub-brains. I'll be able to move it or aim and shoot, not both at the same time. That'd be too much for my li'l PDA to handle! Don't expect great accuracy either."
"Can you direct it at range, or do you require a physical connection?" Cadena inquires, worried. "The robot might be armored, but it will also likely be a bullet-magnet in the case of hostilities - a hazard if you happen to be right next to it - or even riding it."
Tracy's manifest takes her to a suit locker which she unlocks with no trouble. A standard-issue Eagle Security armored jumpsuit hangs there, along with a Spazztic! Hammergun hanging on some pins in the back. It's unloaded but several magazines are stacked at the bottom of the locker. Miss September smiles at Tracy from the inside of the locker.
"Let me just install this RC gizmo then," Akiko's voice replies. She rummages around in her backpack.
Cadena turns his attention to the monitor showing the stocks being rifled through by ghostly forces. "Who does all this belong to? Hmm. Quite the pity it won't do me any good." He then looks back to the monitor showing the workshop, anxious in case of any sudden developments.
Grinning inside her mask, Tracy grabs the suit, gun and ammunition and places it near the door to the workshop. "We won't need to aim," she tells the others. "My plan is to have the robot fire off a few rounds to get the goons' attention, thinking they're under attack. When they react, I can move in and get Randall under cover while Mara zaps everyone. How does that sound?"
Click. Snap. A fat blue spark flies. Akiko ouches, sucks on her finger, then adjusts the gizmo. "Okay, remote control installed. Don't ask me to get it to dance though!"
"Or, we can have it attack the big doors and declare it's a raid, come out with your hands up.." Tracy suggests next.
"That could likely develop into a hostage standoff," Cadena replies, "and we are not here in sufficient force to maintain a siege."
"A more ideal scenario would be one in which they perceive an exterior threat," Cadena suggests, "but not from someone who would be concerned about the welfare of their captives."
Tracy checks the manifest, looking for other distractions - like flash-bang, smoke or gas grenades. "So, have it seem like the robot is firing on someone?"
"I confess that I have not yet formulated a better plan," Cadena subvocalizes.
Akiko wipes motor oil off her forehead and makes tracks for the lobby where she joins Cadena at the security monitors. "Here, let me just..." She pops the robot's head camera feed through. It now shows a grainy, static-shot view of the far wall of the subway tunnel.
Bruno turns around. "Anyone hear ol' Stompy? It hasn't moved in a while," he says, his voice coming through the monitors over the quiet chatter of the thugs' games.
Tracy digs out the gas grenades, but then has to find the masks! "Can you make him stomp around some, Akiko? And look for a safe spot to control him from."
Akiko shivers as she adjusts the control. "It's gotten cold in here suddenly," she complains. Servomotors come to life and the robot stands.
The robot begins walking to the garage. Bruno relaxes. "Ah, there it is."
"Yeah, maybe it was having a moment," Randall agrees.
"My presence here is redundant," Cadena notes. "Unless you object, I shall assist in searching for gear." He hops down and trots - as quietly as he can manage - over to the "ghostly" activity in the store room.
Akiko nods distractedly. "I hope Jason and Inari are okay," she mutters, but it seems to be all she can do to keep the robot coordinated and on its feet.
Tracy deactivates the stealth mode on her suit so Cadena can find her. "I've got six of these sleep grenades, and some armor and a weapon for Randall," she tells him. "I'm thinking.. uh.. robot makes a commotion, one or more of them go to the door to see what's happening. Then we gas them. What do you think?"
"What if we breathe the gas?" Cadena inquires, still using the subvocal pickup. He scans the containers.
"Well, there must be gas masks in here somewhere, keep looking," Tracy claims. "If Mara is awake, she'll probably use her fans to keep the gas away from herself and Randall if he's close by. That's why we have to try and separate the goons."
"Commotion standing by," Akiko says.
The gas masks are in a different box all the way across the store room, next to the ominous-looking sealed environment suits meant to be used by firefighters.
Cadena trots over to the box. "I think I've found them, though I sincerely doubt they have anything in my size. Also, I am fairly certain they've disabled any transmitter the cyborg might have, but what if it has a receiver? Perhaps there's some way to warn it what we're doing, as soon as it goes off."
The hispanic CERT officer frowns thoughtfully at his cards. He glances toward the giant garage doors, currently closed, then pushes in more chips. "I'll raise," he says, though his hand looks bad.
"I.. have no idea," Tracy admits. "But I'm sure Mara will act to protect Randall, as soon as he's not under that gun. Do you see anything else on this manifest you think would be useful?"
Cadena's mouth is occupied, as he fetches gas masks, extracts them from their containers, and checks the filters. He trots over, dropping two at Tracy's feet, then rushes over to drop two with Akiko. Glancing at the monitor, and gauging Randall's glances, he says, "I don't know what's up, but I think their card game is about to end soon. I fear we may be running out of time."
Akiko picks it up and puts it on. "Mmf, mmf?" "Now?"
"Master, I need to know our plan before I can act, or I might simply get in the way," Cadena subvocalizes. "What is our plan of action?"
"Okay, I'm going unlock the door," Tracy says. She has to open the mask of her suit to put on the respirator though. "Once that's done, trigger the robot. I'll toss in the grenade when they react."
'Einie' shuffles around. Its gun-arm now faces the far wall of the station, aiming straight for the first 'O' in 'NORTH BEND MAINTENANCE STATION'.
"Then.. uh, we improvise as needed!" Tracy says, and starts on the door.
Cadena rushes back to hastily dig through in the hopes of finding something, anything the least bit useful, though mindful that time is short.
The white dog remembers something he saw ... somewhere before. He removes an oxygen breather from one of the environmental suits and tries to wrestle it onto his back to supply himself with some fresh air ... but once more, he is thwarted by his poor excuse for fingers. "Er ... master? Could you help me position this? Quickly? It might help me last longer in the gas. I apologize for not thinking of this sooner."
"Hold on," Tracy says, coming over to help strap the tank to Cadena's armor and gets the mouthpiece in position under his nose.
Cadena bows in thanks once it's finished, then takes position near the door.
"Okay, Akiko, do your thing," Tracy says, one hand on the door handle and a grenade in the other.
RATATATATAT The Einie starts unloading its gunarm into the far wall, turning the O into a zero with a slash through it! Bruno jerks up, turning around. "We got trouble out front! C'mon guys! Zeke, cover the geek."
Zeke draws his handgun like the other thugs do, and covers Randall. Randall raises his hands in the air with an ironic look on his face - he's been pretty well disarmed already. Bruno moves to the door control mechanism and hits the button. The garage doors start to slide open.
That's Tracy's cue! She opens the door and throws the grenade towards the opening doors.
The grenade bounces crazily off of the various detritus on the floor, and skitters to a stop against the southern wall, drawing the nearby thugs' attention. "What the--" and then it goes off in a cloud of pale orange gas! The thugs begin coughing.
"What do you see through the cameras, Akiko?" Tracy asks as she tries to get the face mask of the sneaksuit down over the gas-mask. "Can you carry a grenade, Cadena?"
Cadena looks bewildered at Tracy, then answers by grabbing up a grenade in his mouth and dashing into the room.
The sneaksuit fabric stretches, but it feels like it would be too tight a fit to try to force it over the gas mask.
Unfortunately, this is too much for the dog to manage, and he ends up dropping the grenade along the way. Seeing that he's now an open target in a room full of armed thugs, he continues his rush toward "Zeke."
Bruno whirls around looking for the source of the grenade. "We're under attack!" he yells. "I'll cover the front, you two cover the back! Get the dog!"
Zeke whirls around but finds an angry looking dog coming his way. "AUGH!" He squeezes off a shot by reflex.
The bullet plasters against Cadena's kevlar harness. It bruises, but at least it didn't go through!
The other thug instinctively takes a shot at the most obvious moving thing - Cadena! This one Cadena does feel, as it hits hard in his side, dazing him.
The Einhorn turns its guns toward the warehouse. Akiko's voice calls, "Caddie! Are you okay??"
"What the--" is all Bruno has time to say before the turn of the Einhorn catches him off guard. The gun-arm lines up with him... And opens fire!
Unfortunately, the shots go wild - perhaps Akiko didn't get the gun-arm control quite right. Bullets spray across the room, drawing the thugs' attention!
Bruno yells, "Something's taken control of the robot! Take it out!" He empties his HMG into it by way of example.
Electricity crackles as the bullets pound into the Einhorn mecha! Akiko's screens go haywire; she taps furiously on her PDA, trying to reboot the control software.
Bruno drifts back toward the door controls while pounding away, clearly intending to shut it out.
Two of the other thugs pour fire from their handguns at the Einhorn, one missing badly, the other striking up sparks but failing to get through its hideously tough armor. Zeke flips a switch and the vibro-bayonet on his handgun comes to life! "Never thought I'd have to use this," he mutters.
Randall, seeing his opportunity, lunges after Zeke, trying to wrestle him down to the ground!
"Get moving," he says to the dog, managing to capture him in a hold. "I've got this one!"
A voice comes over Tracy's line at just that second. "This is mostly-dead Jason calling Streaker-Tracy, Desoto is neutralized and we're alive. More or less. How goes the recon of Randall's imprisonment?"
After struggling with her mask (now wearing it outside the face of her suit), Tracy is back in stealth and picking up another grenade and the mask for Randall when the call comes through. "We found him," she replies, as she heads into the room and throws the next grenade back towards Bruno.
Zeke yipes as the gun goes flying! "No, they be takin' my gun!" He struggles in Randall's grasp.
"And are you two able to extract him safely? Or do I need to come rescue you too?" Jason asks.
"Working on it," Tracy hisses. "The giant robot slowed us a down, and I throw like a girl.."
Mara gets to her feet. Wisps of steam appear over her nostrils, and then ice crystals begin to form in the air before her muzzle!
The grenade bounces off the side of the control box! Bruno coughs as he's right next to the emitted gas.
Bruno chokes out, "Hold your breath!"
While the gas distracts the goons, Tracy turns and hurries towards Mara to try and get her free.
Cadena rushes over toward Mara, with the recently-acquired gun clenched between his teeth, vibroblade away.
"You are a girl. Do you need me to come help ... or should I stay here with Inari and entertain her?" Jason asks.
"Of course you should come and help!" Tracy replies. "Akiko's having problems with her robot."
Bruno coughs as he stumbles out of the gas cloud, accompanied by his thugs. "Zeke! Frotz it, you let the prisoner get the drop on you!" Randall grins back at him from where he's holding Zeke like a human shield. Bruno raises his machine gun and covers Randall, but looks unwilling to take the shot just yet.
Zeke struggles in Randall's hands. "Leggo, you pig!"
"Inari, don't do ... " Jason starts to transmit into the comm. The transmission gets cut off.
Bruno's eyes are drawn toward a gas mask floating in midair, working on Mara's shackles. He fires his machine gas mask into the air. "Drop it!" he orders the unknown entity.
Tracy obliges, and takes off and drops the gas mask - which was the only indicator of where she was anyway.
The Einhorn Crowd Protection Mecha suddenly snaps back into life as Akiko works her magic. The gun-arm focuses on Bruno. An amplified voice yells, "No, YOU drop it!"
Cadena, not seeing exactly where Tracy is, but aware that a heavy machine gun is pointing vaguely in her direction AND in the direction of the person (and creature) they're supposed to be rescuing, growls and rushes over toward Bruno, trying to get a bite on the offending gun.
Bruno yelps as the dog attacks him! "We've got a hacker, some sneaky jerk and now the pet dog?" he gripes. "Don't just stand there, help me!"
"Jason's on his way," Akiko subvocalizes. "Want me to drop the ceiling on 'em?"
"Hey, that's a good idea!" Tracy replies, and grabs up the dropped gun-with-vibroblade to try and hack through Mara's restraints while Cadena keeps everyone busy.
The chain parts under the vibroblade like cheese before a hot knife! Mara stands more fully, though constrained by the garage. She opens her mouth, preparing to breath. Randall releases Zeke and flings himself to the ground!
Only one of the guards is lucky enough to be able to roll with the attack! Bruno stares stupefied as the frozen air hammers toward him...
Two of the thugs are instantly blocks of ice! Thick ice covers Bruno from head to toe, including (unfortunately for the acquisitive Cadena) his machine gun. He stammers, shivering, "Wh... whuh?"
The last remaining guard on his feet points his gun first at Randall, then at the white dog, then at Mara, trying to figure out who to attack.
Cadena is completely caught off guard as powdery frost covers his fur, he can see his breath, and the gun becomes very, very cold.
Akiko swivels the Einhorn's gunarm, first to the lifter, then as Mara's breath chills the guards down, on the surviving guard. "Care to surrender?" her cheerful voice says over the Einhorn's amplifier.
The guard whirls and faces the Einhorn! "Eat hot lead!" he screams, emptying his gun at the robot.
Bruno shivers as he falls back heavily into the still-lingering cloud of sleep gas. "Frotzing... dog..."
The white dog snarls, landing on top of Bruno, trying to hold him down.
And then the gas gets to him - must be thicker low down - and he falls unconscious.
Mara takes in a deep breath, glaring around the room.
The white dog, at least temporarily protected from the effects of the gas by the rigged oxygen supply under his nose, leaps off of Bruno, and toward the wildly-firing thug!
In a flurry of fang and claw, the white dog leaps upon the thug, and snatches at his gun.
The guard keeps firing... fir-- "AH! MAD DOG!" he yells as Cadena strips his gun away. "Er. I surrender?" He raises his hands, noticing that he's now under the guns of the Einhorn and a severely upset dragon.
Tracy heads for Randall, telling him, "There's an armored jumpsuit and weapon through the door next to Mr. Surrender," she whispers, not breaking stealth (after all, the only one the goons have seen is Cadena so far). "Let's get out of here before Jason and Inari show and blame me for messing things up somehow."
Akiko breathes a sigh of relief, though she continues to cover the thugs with the Einhorn.
Randall nods to thin air, then starts taking charge of the situation by prising loose the Hammergun from one of the frozen thugs. "So good to see you've come around to see things my way," he drawls. "By the way... Did you know Zeke cheats at cards?"
"I thought you said you needed my help! You all look fine. Why, you, ooo," Jason complains over the radio. "You're determined to make it impossible for me to find any happiness at all. That's it, you're sleeping in the dumpster!"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-02-20-warehouse-rendezvous.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 1:00 AM Eastern
The clock has finally ticked into Tuesday of this crazy week, but you couldn't prove it by Jason's biological clock, which insists that it's still Monday until he gets some sleep. Unfortunately, Mr. Desoto insisted that the pickup be made at this ungodly hour, which is why he's pulling up in front of the abandoned G-Motors Auto Service Facility. Two other cars have already pulled up, but are shut down and judging from the tiny red lights pulsing in their windows, have standard security systems preventing them from being stolen... Not that that would stop Jason for long if he wanted to break into one.
What does concern Jason is that the garage doors, formerly closed, have been opened, though the interior remains darkened. The aircar's headlights illuminate Mr. Desoto, flanked by six men dressed in full form-fitting armored jumpsuits. Desoto himself continues to wear a natty business suit, but one can assume that he has some kind of protection beneath it, perhaps a bulletproof vest like Jason's own. He's wearing sunglasses at night and makes no move to shield his eyes from the glare - some kind of smart vision at work, no doubt.
Inari slides one door open and slips out into the night. Garbed in a black armored jumpsuit, with a sleek black Naginata Divine Mercy sniper rifle - just like the one she used in her recent music video, if not the same one - she looks dressed to kill. Even her tail is black, though whether that's some kind of illusion or high-tech solution, Jason hasn't yet asked. "I'll be keeping an eye on you," her voice whispers through Jason's implant.
Robots report in electronically. Jason sees their views as tiny inset squares in his vision; Alpha, tucked behind a door in the parts display area, Beta, lurking in the supply room, Gamma in the break room, hidden beneath a chair, and Delta, concealed in the sofa - hopefully no one tries to sit on it or they'll get a lumpy surprise.
"If I do get actually taken down, I want you to take RIU and leave. Go help Tracy. There is no point in you getting killed too," Jason communicates back to Inari. "Now as for the fake takedown, I'll need to get back to the car, so I might need someone to drag me. Hm. Or of they're distracted enough I'll crawl my own way out." Jason adjusts his long coat now and strides towards the opened doors. His movements try to look controlled, but have a deliberate 'nervous' twitch about them. He wants them to think he's nervous after all. Emotional manipulation is a key point of controlling any situation, after all.
RIU shimmers invisible and darts toward the warehouse, high and hopefully out of vision of the armed thugs. Inari's voice says grimly over the comm, "Understood. Let's just hope they stay on-script. I hate improv."
"Unfortunately in these sorts of 'games' you have to be very adaptable and never afraid to use anything at hand. Such as shooting out a crane mount instead of an armored thug ... and letting the thug get squished by the crane, and so on as an example. I also wouldn't be surprised if they try and change the deal and just try and capture me. It seems Irongrip has been hiring them to gather certain people, after all," Jason notes. He continues onward towards the garage. "A rather lot of people to drag along just for a simple sales deal," he calls out to Desoto.
Mr. Desoto reaches down and switches on a lamp, illuminating the gray box on the ground in front of him as well as the smirk on his face. "Ah! The infamous Mr. Edwards. You'd be surprised how many people try to kill me over a few hundred New Dollars. I find a display of overwhelming force rather effective in preventing any... accidents."
"Infamous? What have you been listening to? I'm a small-time businessman," Jason claims as he continues forwards towards the box. "Confirm the goods before triggering the trap," he thinks.
"And if I haven't mentioned it, it's been great to see you, Inari," Jason thinks through his implant.
Inari's voice retorts. "Concentrate on the business at hand, you can flirt with me later, lover-boy!"
Desoto grins. "Not according to my source. Seems you've played with the big boys in your past! First Dantech, then Avatars... Impressive, I must say. In light of that, I trust you'll understand if I revise my estimate of your spending ability?" The box bears the Amaranth logo and some meaningless letters and numbers that presumably reflect the model number of the jumpsuit it contains.
"The deal was already agreed to," Jason helpfully points out, "Change the deal now and you've effectively called it off." He continues on towards the box. "And I've worked for a lot of people, I'm a freelancer in security. Doesn't make me special, or wealthy. You have a lot more ... interesting associates than I do."
The two nearby thugs in armored jumpsuit cover Jason with their guns as he approaches. They are armed with menacing-looking Spazztic! Rocker heavy machine guns, straps over their shoulders to help support the weight of the massive black frames. The other four thugs hold Spazztic! Hammerguns, similarly blocky pistols equipped with entirely superfluous vibroblade bayonets, but at least theirs are pointed down at the ground.
"And you're also extremely paranoid," Jason remarks and thumbs towards the heavy machine guns. "But for someone who's Irongrip's hired flunkies, I guess you should be. You do realize they'll kill you as soon as you're a liability, yes?" Jason adds as he gets more and more worried. "Quicker than your prostate problems will."
"To have interesting associates is my business!" claims Mr. Desoto. He scowls at Jason's crack. "Irongrip! Nothing but a jumped-up thug, selling muscle. But what has he to do with our business?"
"I know they're contracting with you. And I know that you're now at the end of your usefulness to them," Jason remarks as he crouches down to examine the box. Specifically, he 'listens' for signals on the box itself, such as an active trap system or the like.
Desoto frowns. "Contracting? I have no business with those fascists! They think that they can take control of the Dregs just by sending out a few of their jackbooted lackeys to intimidate us. But as they've found out, we have fangs." He lowers his Spazztic! Reaper shotgun briefly, rubbing his wrists. It must be pretty heavy.
Jason tries to open the lid and check the contents. "Then why did you contract with them to shoot down that policeman for them?" Jason asks.
"With them? It was from an anonymous-- how do you know about that?" Desoto raises his shotgun again, eying Jason suspiciously.
RIU hides in the rafters, eying the thugs warily and considering which one to zap first. Jason feels its nervousness rising.
"I'm in security, it's my job to know what is going on," Jason points out. "Do you think I would do dealings with you without knowing everything about you? I make it a point to learn all I can. And frankly, you should too as you would have known they hired you for that job. And it matters right now because we're all in a trap set by them. They want us all dead or out of the way. You've done your part ... and I'm a dangerous liability. They got to me five hours ago and made it clear that I had to ..." "Alpha. Take the shot, chest upper right, rubber round," he thinks to one of his bots.
"Cover breached, terminate all targets," echoes several metallic 'voices' in unison. A simultaneous shattering of wood and metal 'frame' echoes throughout the darkened warehouse as four doors explode inward into fragments. Four armored and armed combat robots enter. Their coloration is subdued, blacks and greys. The only visible marker on them is the infamous Irongrip logo, ever so lovingly painted by Tracy earlier. And the first target is chosen, one of the robots raises its gun-arm and aims it right at Jason.
KaPOW! The rubber bullet lands square on the red dye pack under Jason's shirt. Paint fountains outward as he reels backward realistically, but the bullet is fortunately rubber, or Inari would have a real mess to clean up. A tiny clack accompanies the sound of Alpha switching to its armor piercing bullets.
It's funny how when you come close to dying that everything seems to 'slow down'. The moment of the impact sends Jason backwards ... and of everything he could possibly be thinking of, he thinks, "DAMMIT THAT HURT!". He isn't even sure if he broadcast it or not to everyone else; it just hurt! Soon he finds himself sliding back along the floor on his side, leaving a red smear of paint in his wake.
"Initiating plan 'organic cleanse'," the other robots chime in, and open fire! Delta targets Thug 2, Gamma thug three, and Beta ... he targets Desoto!
Desoto turns with surprise to the incoming robots, but he's just now opening his mouth to yell, turning his gun toward one of the robots on the right, as the robots open fire.
"That is so going to leave one hell of a bruise," Jason thinks into his comm. "I'm okay, though. Just ... ow."
As bullets rip across the room, the mercenary designated as 'Thug 2' goes down, red fountaining from his head! Another mercenary staggers, taking what looks like a non-vital wound through his suit, hexagons crinkling and crumpling.
A third bullet smacks into Desoto's chest but apart from being staggered, he doesn't seem hurt. He finishes what he was going to yell, "Ambush! DROP THE HAMMER!"
Inari's voice says insistently over his implant, "Jason! An aircar just started its engine up behind us! About a hundred feet away!"
"Can you target its engines?" Jason thinks as he starts an authentically painful crawl towards the door. "Take it out if you can. Aim for stablizers or the engine!"
Desoto and the thugs begin firing wildly, trying to take out the robots before they can complete their 'organic cleansing' program!
PAF The Spazztic! Reaper unloads its full load of bullets into Beta's chest. The robot reels backward. Damage status reports start scrolling up Jason's vision. Gyroscopic compensator, disrupted! Adjustment in progress.
Eric pumps out bullet after bullet from his Spazztic! Rocker, the din like a heavy backbeat for some rock video. Alpha is driven against the wall of the warehouse, though the bullets don't seem to have penetrated its casing. It's a good thing Jason upgraded their armor!
Carl has better luck as he pounds poor Gamma. The robot literally flies to pieces as the bullets hammer home, rending piece from piece. Though that was fortunately not one of the robots that Jason had upgraded the software on.
The tiny Chinese dragon curled up in the rafter reaches out, clinging with two feet while it has both claw-hands exposed. ZAP! A bright blue levinbolt cracks across the room and hits Carl's heavy machine gun. Lightning arcs and crackles around it, causing Carl to yell in pain and drop it. "SONUVA!"
Inari's voice comes back. "It's a Road Warrior! I can see a machine gun bolted on the top, with a blast shield. They've just lit up. Driver's going to be a tough shot. Lining it up."
Lights appear out in the half-moon-lit night. Big headlights.
Jason 'struggles' to his feet, then heads towards his car, holding his shoulder! Sure, it hurts .. but hopefully anyone who sees it will 'assume' he's just trying to escape while hurt!
Mr. Desoto ratchets his shotgun to reload, but out the corner of his eye he notices running. "Don't try to run," he yells after Jason. "After we clean out these jerk robots of Irongrip's, we're going to have some real tough questions for you!" He opens fire on the more immediate threat.
Sparks fly from Alpha's carapace - and fire! It looks like the shotgun blast managed to do more than throw it off balance. But Desoto will need to reload next, shotguns like that don't normally have a large magazine.
Alpha crunches against the wall of the automotive service shop under the combined fire of the nearby thugs! Inari whispers, "Almost got this shot... Come into my crosshairs, baby."
Carl swears as he glares down at the lightning-crackling weapon. "Frotz! Where'd that come from?" He glares around, but never thinks to look up. The other thugs pop away with their handguns at the remaining robot on that side, Delta.
But do no more than scrape its paint!
"Try to calm down. If you're going to die, at least do it with a spine. It's been four years since Inari saw you last; don't ruin it now by panicking," Jason thinks as he slumps against the front of his car and closes his eyes for a moment. "Control module, reroute control through secondary channels, bypass damaged links on beta. Come on, these have redundant systems, just have to activate them."
Another bright blue bolt strikes down from the ceiling! The mercenary designated 'Thug Three' does a wild epileptic dance before crumpling in a pile of smoking jumpsuit.
Carl whirls around wildly. "Who done that? We're under attack! SCIENCE NINJAS!"
The surviving droids continue relentlessly onward! The abandoned garage is starting to resemble a classic horror action game scene with bodies sprawled everywhere. Bullets rip into Carl, who is knocked back against Desoto's feet, and "Thug 4" staggers under the impact of bullets from behind him.
The oncoming Road Warrior comes relentlessly onward, like an unstoppable juggernaut... And then a needle-thin beam of light cracks from the darkness besides Jason's car, right into the driver's viewport in its armor. It begins to slew sideways, while the gunner yells startledly.
"One down," Inari's voice says quietly over the comm.
"Jesus, never make Inari mad," Jason mutters, wide-eyed at the sudden shot.
Despite this, even knowing Inari is right there, Jason can't make out any signs of her presence. Maybe she moved to another vantage point.
Desoto catches sight of the Hammer slewing sideways. "Dominic!" he yells, presumably over his comm. "What's going on? Get that car under control!"
He swears as he empties the cartridge from his shotgun and reloads it.
Carl scrambles to his feet and lunges toward the closest weapon he can see - the Hammergun discarded by the fallen thug. "Come out wherever you are, SCIENCE NINJAS!" he yells. He's bleeding heavily - he must have popped some kind of stimulants.
Eric and his friend continue to plug away at Beta, but freshly rebooted with Jason's improved software, the bullets fail to do more than scratch away at its paint. Eric yells, "They're like the ABOMINATORS! They won't stop coming!"
The surviving two robots continue to fire their rifles with beautifully disciplined teamwork. Thug 4 dives out of the way of the bullets, but Carl, still groggy, gets smashed back down into the ground. This time he's out for good.
"Inari, try to hit the guy near the wrecked Alpha, the one closest to the car," Jason says into the comm, even though Inari is supposedly somewhere nearby.
Another zap! The mercenary wobbles, looking dazed by the electrical attack.
Jason lets out a long breath and makes his way around his car. "Time to actually help out," he mutters, popping open the trunk and exposing the mass of slit-open metal armor inside. He grabs the frame of the right arm and slides his into the fragment. "I feel like such an idiot," he thinks while doing so.
Desoto looks up, tracking the lightning bolt. "There's got to be someone up there!" he yells. But so far he's not looking in the right place. RIU emits worried feelings to Jason as he ducks back behind the rafter.
ZAP Another needle-thin beam of light pierces the air! This time it hits the red-colored jumpsuited thug next to the car, going right through his chest. He staggers, but there's no blood. The wound must have been instantly cauterized.
Desoto swears as his thugs are going down around him. "Mother of-- they've got a sniper out there! Find them and shoot them, Jacob!" He tries to find cover behind the car, drawing down on Beta with his freshly reloaded shotgun at close range.
As Desoto pulls the trigger however, the cheap Spazztic! assembly misfires and explodes in his face. BAM!
The Mexican businessman staggers back from the smoking remains of his shotgun. "AUGH!" he yells. The goggles protected his eyes from the shrapnel but that had to have hurt.
'Thug 4' whirls around as he hears the explosion. "Boss! Oh no! Are you okay? They've got grenades!" He jumps to a logical conclusion, followed by the logical answer: shoot the robot that just got his boss!
The Spazztic! Hammergun leaps in the thug's hands as it unloads bullets into Beta! With its programs rerouted around the damaged sensors, this proves to be too much. Bits of armor go flying as it staggers.
"Oh come on, secondary neural path. You can activate! Grrr," Jason thinks as he struggles with his armor behind the vehicle. The armor is going better than trying to find the secondary path in Beta and get it back online.
Zap! RIU tries again, but having pulled back into cover to avoid being seen, its aim is off. Lightning plays over the car, causing its headlights to go on briefly.
The line of light stabs for a third time... Boom, headshot! Missing his head, the red jumpsuited thug topples over with a thump of finality.
Jason begins to question why, exactly, he built this suit, since its effectiveness seems ... limited. Still, the final frame clamps closed and the segmented plating draws in, sealing itself around his body. Though it lacks hydraulics to make any noticeable movement sound, the weight does. Jason heads around the car now, encased in layers of steel and artificial muscle. "Desoto, it is over. Your gang's usefulness is at its end. Surrender now and we will permit you to live by handing you over to the police. Continue to fight and well ... I think you can figure out the outcome," he says through its voice unit. He marches towards the garage again. He's fairly certain the armor can hold up to a few shots bit ... testing is not the same thing as a real fight.
Desoto sobs, holding his burned hands. "You win! We surrender! Stand down, stand down everyone!" Jason hears servos whining as the heavy machine gun covering him from the Road Warrior turns away.
RIU emits a triumphant 8-bit victory tune over Jason's implant.
"Inari, stay hidden until everything is secure. You're still the ace in the hole, Jason transmits over the comm unit as he marches into the garage. "All of you, into the back room, parts and supplies. Now," Jason orders. "And as for you, Desoto, thank you for capturing the policeman. We will be collecting him shortly. It is a pity you will not be paid for the work," he claims.
The two surviving thugs march sullenly into the supply room. By the way they're eying their boss, it seems unlikely that Desoto will continue to hold much sway over Mav's Mavericks after this debacle. Desoto sweats but continues to hold his arms in the air. "Not paid--! You dirty, no-good..."
"You would have done the same," the armored figure points out as he directs them into the supply room. once they're all inside, Jason pulls closed what remains of the door. After eying that for a moment, he looks back to the abandoned car. "Better make sure they stay in there," he decides and goes to see if he can get the machine running enough to jam it up against the entrance.
With RIU hanging in the rafters, Jason methodically searches each thug and relieves them of their PDAs and weapons. They even had a few grenades. It makes for quite a nice pile - if only Jason knew a reputable dealer that could sell the weapons for him! Or he could hang onto them for later use.
Given the state of his home, Jason will hang onto them for now. The situation seems to just get uglier and they may be needed. Aside from being the sacrificial lamb, he doesn't feel like he did much here. Well, he did upgrade and place the robots ... but beyond that ... yes he feels a bit like the geek at a sports game. Setting himself to the task at hand, though, he gpes the the side of the car opposite the door. Bracing hhimself against it, he engages the muscular assist of the suit and pushes it across the floor and towards the supply room doors to block them in.
The derelict car's plastic shell creaks and crumples a bit under the armor's servos. With no real difficulty, Jason shoves the car into place. If he'd had this on from the start, the fight might have been over much more quickly...
Desoto hammers on the door. "Hey! What are you doing? We surrendered!"
"And you are alive, are you not?" Jason points out. "You're going to 'stay' there for a while so that you do not cause further complications. Now if you will excuse me, I have a hacker to track down." He heads towards the sneaksuit box now, figuring it's probably empty anyway. It didn't sound like Desoto planned to keep up his end of the deal, anyway.
The box contains a sleek black-looking jumpsuit, along with the charging unit and a manual and a variety of small parts which Jason would guess are accessories meant to be assembled after shipping. The label identifies it as the 'Amaranth Shadowsuit mk 1200'. A top of the line civilian grade sneaksuit.
Desoto grumbles. His erstwhile 'friends' begin yelling at him for screwing the deal up. "Six against one, man! And where was the intel on these Irongrip guys? You're supposed to know about this stuff!"
"Yes, that is about what I thought, not what was asked for," Jason thinks, completely not surprised. He shrugs and rethinks it a bit. It might be better to leave these guys loose to harass Iron grip now. So ... he'll not inform the police this time. He hefts up the box and heads back towards the car. "RIU, we're done here. You need rest ... and I need one heck of a sports bandaid and some camphor rub for my shoulder. Even with a vest, rubber bullets hurt//." And then he adds through the comm, "Inari ... you really scare me."
"Do I?" If Jason could see her, judging from her tone of voice, he'd say she was looking at him with her head tilted to one side, raising an eyebrow archly. "Good job in there, Jason. I only picked off one of them, it looks like your robots did a pretty good job."
RIU chirps! as he lands on Jason's shoulder as if to say that he had a pretty important role in there too!
"It could have gone better, but limited info means limited planning. Not to mention there wasn't much time," Jason says. He reaches the car and pops open the back door and tosses the suit inside. It may not be useful ... but dammit, he gets something for that bruise he knows is on his upper chest and shoulder. He also unhooks and pulls his helmet off for the moment. "And I'll have to collect the robots and repair what I can ... or Holly will complain about misusing Avatar's property. And ... enough grumbling. For someone who has been in music for four years, you haven't lost a single bit of your deadly touch."
Inari appears out of the darkness, a grin lighting her face as she helps Jason with the armor. "It's been fun." She nods toward the Road Warrior, its headlights still on. "Too bad that thing can't fly, it'd be a lot of fun to have our own tank."
"There are two other cars over there that have working flight systems. A little cutting and repurposing and who says it wouldn't be able to fly?" Jason points out and pauses to actually think about it. "The power output from the two ought to be enough..."
And maybe it's coming close to dying a few minutes ago, or maybe Jason has just finally snapped ... but with Inari right next to him. The black-clad fox-woman finds herself suddenly hugged and worse ... an awkward kiss planted on her cheek by the ragtag hacker. And in another moment, he's let go and remarking, "Yes, it might work. I think I'll try..." As if the fact he just hugged and kissed an international music star didn't even happen.
Inari snags Jason as he tries to let go and draws him up to her tightly, arms around his waist. Her golden eyes stare intently into his, as her cold wet fox nose touches his human nose. "Don't. You. Kiss. And. Run."
"Eek?" Jason stammers out, wide-eyed. "I was just, I heh, ah ... I'm still here I was going to try and make the tank fly? I wasn't running anywhere?"
Inari lowers her muzzle toward Jason. The teeth! The... kiss! The international music star is kissing Jason, deeply. And there are no camera robots around to save him. Or doom him, as the case might be.
Jason's brain just ... stalls. The only thing he finds himself very thankful for is that Tracy isn't here to see this ... nor are any cameras around to record it. It's embarrassing enough as it is. He's at least intelligent enough to not fight with Inari ... but the whole situation is rather odd. Particularly when he realizes he's hugging her back during it!
Inari's tongue is surprisingly soft, not at all raspy like he'd imagined, and her teeth... He feels himself being lowered to the ground, then her claws at the fasteners for his jumpsuit.
"Randall," Jason stammers out when his brain has some level of intelligence return to it. "We need to make sure Randall has been rescued," he reminds Inari, though he's not about to try and physically overpower her! "As much as I want to ... we have to make sure the others are safe first."
The moment lingers, with Inari's golden fox head silhouetted by the half-moon hanging over Jason's head, her hair draping across his face... and then she sighs. "You're right," she says. She licks Jason's nose. "Rain check for later then?"
Jason has never felt this terrified ... ever. He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to calm down every paranoia, fear, and stupid hangup that comes up any time he's around someone he finds attractive. When they open, he actually kisses Inari back, even if it is awkward and unpracticed. "Later," he agrees in whisper then it ends, "And I expect you to hold me to it and hunt me down if I panic. Just ... don't use that gun."
Inari grins. "Oh, this gun is no good for hunting wily Jasons," she whispers into his ear as she helps him up, and zips her own jumpsuit back up. "I'd prefer to do that with my own claws."
"Ah, yeah, claws," Jason stammers as he tries to organize his own disheveled clothing. "For what it's worth ... I'm sorry I didn't keep in better contact. You had been freed from your chains and I didn't want to ... impose new ones? I wanted you to be free? Or maybe I was just rationalizing excuses. I ... don't do well expression feelings of any sort about people. Particularly those I ... became fond of. Plus ... well ... me. I'm hardly a catch in the grands scheme of things. I never felt like I could make you happy. I am ... well ... not normal."
The golden fox rolls her eyes. "I'm not really a poster child for normality myself, so I'm hardly one to judge," she says as she helps Jason straighten up, then starts loading weapons into the back seat of the borrowed aircar. "But just that one thing about you... Wanting me to be free." Her hand closes over Jason's briefly. "That makes all the difference between you and Brian Montagne."
"I would never ask anyone to give up their dreams for me," Jason says as he rubs at his sore chest, "I would rather lose them if it meant they would be happier ... than be selfish and try to keep them to fulfill my own dreams. And there is something you should probably know about Brian; something I learned tonight when talking with Akiko."
"What's that?" Inari turns to look at Jason curiously.
"Akiko showed me a vid-clip of him. It was creepy to see someone that looked like a less scarred version of myself. I had Kimon, my computer, run a wireframe analysis of his build, focusing on his facial structures. He was a ninty-six percent match to my own. That, in nature, is unheard of. The variances the type you get from cosmetic surgery. It was like looking at a twin of myself; just ... younger and cleaner. I think Brian is the Avatar-World clone of me that was rescued when we escaped," Jason explains.
Inari pauses. "From the moment I saw him, he seemed familiar. He looked like someone I'd like. It didn't take me long to realize it was because he looked like you." She shakes her head, her dark hair half-hiding her face. "But he doesn't think like you do. He wanted me to give up music... To be his wife. Have his children. I..." Was that a stifled sob? "I don't even know if I can have children, let alone if they'd be healthy!"
Jason, ever unsure what what the right thing is to do ... ends up going behind Inari and just hugging her. "He should have asked you what would make you happy," he says, "Instead of requesting things that would make him happy. And I'm also worried he may be involved in what is going on now. I think it was him who made sure I wouldn't get any contact information from Akiko. But ... that's all guesswork; I have no real proof of it. I just ... worry he is now trying to do better than me in everything to prove he's more than just a copy."
Inari leans into Jason's arms. "Yes... That bastard. He wants so many things. You say he's your clone?... Maybe he thinks it's the only way he can prove he's real, to have everything."
"Well, I guess it's good he was a bastard, otherwise you wouldn't be here right now," Jason admits. Risking his own life again, he kisses the back of Inari's head lightly. "Come on, we had better find out how the others are faring before I change my mind and make later, ah, now," he admits sheepishly.
Inari smiles against Jason's neck, her muzzle turning back to address him. "Ah, temptations. You know, that's another way you're different from him..." She doesn't say anything else however. "Are you going to call them?"
"Oh, right, I suppose I could call them right now," Jason admits, having completely forgotten that he could when Inari nearly ruined his purity! (Yeah, right. Pure.) He's still holding onto Inari as he leans back against the car and closes his eyes. "/This is mostly-dead Jason calling Streaker-Tracy,/" he pipes into the implant and back through the comm-system. "/Desoto is neutralized and we're alive. More or less. How goes the recon of Randall's imprisonment?"
Tracy's voice responds, "We found him." It sounds like there's a ruckus going on behind her.
"And are you two able to extract him safely? Or do I need to come rescue you too?" Jason asks.
"They found him, but she hasn't told me much more than that. Sounds like a mess is going on there, too," Jason notes.
"Working on it," Tracy hisses. "The giant robot slowed us a down, and I throw like a girl.."
"You are a girl. Do you need me to come help ... or should I stay here with Inari and entertain her?" Jason asks.
Inari distracts Jason by nibbling on his ear -- teeth! -- while he subvocalizes.
"Inari, don't do ... " Jason starts to transmit into the comm, but catches himself in time to prevent saying just what Inari was doing to him to Tracy.
"Of course you should come and help!" Tracy replies. "Akiko's having problems with her robot."
"Oh fine. I'll contact Akiko and see if I can help remotely, otherwise, we'll head out," Jason replies in the comm. "I have to see if I can help Akiko she's having robot problems," he informs Inari ... then closes his eyes to focus on trying to contact Akiko now. "Akiko, Jason here. We're alive. Tracy says you need help?" he tries to send to the Asian woman.
"Almost there... Yes! Got it rebooted," Akiko sends back. She relays gun-camera feed of the unfolding tableau. A guy with a heavy machine gun aiming it at Randall, who's got a different thug as a human shield, Mara behind them warming up her breath weapon, two other thugs covering Randall... The standard: SNAFU.
"Robot problems again?" Inari commiserates. "Well, we should get everything packed up and head on over then."
"What is above the grunts with the guns?" Jason transmits, "Aim camera up a bit. May need an indirect attack here ... such as dropping a beam on their heads." Jason seems very reluctant to let Inari go, but he does so eventually. "Yes, we should. We've got a 'mexican standoff' going on over there." "We're on our way." he adds to the transmission back to Akiko.
"Thanks, Jason! Looking forward to having some sanity around here again." Akiko responds.
The camera tilts up to show the heavy lifter that would normally be used to move the subway cars around.
The feed shows the shackle around Mara's leg falling away. Mara lifts her head ... and breathes! Several of the guards turn into instant popsicles.
"And you'll need to drive. I'm going to dive and help them from the inside of the systems," Jason tells Inari as he now hurries to finish loading the car so the pair can take off. "Never a dull moment, is there? Lets go!"
Inari laughs. "That's what I've missed about hanging out with you, Jason."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\02_23_2011-inarilight.htmlThe fourth wall, the one furthest from the bed looks like it isn't there at all! Instead an oddly serene view of mountains and a forest lit by a full moon takes its place. It's only on closer inspection that it turns out the fourth wall is a re-purposed (salvaged) OLED screen from some old cinema. Jason apparently uses it to make it feel like he's off in the wilderness instead of nestled in the decaying part of an old city. Another door leads out and from what can be seen through it, the edge of what looks like a whirlpool bath, it's probably his private bathroom.
"It isn't much, but it's the quietest and most private room in the place," Jason claims as he enters from the workshop and turns on the recessed and hidden lighting, bringing the room light level to something akin to the light from a setting sun. "The door has a biometric security code; so I'll need to program yours into it as one of the master codes so that none of us can bother you if you don't want to be disturbed. The bathroom has booth a shower and a large tub; and there is a cabinet with shampoo and towels. So hm, I think that's all you'll need? I don't have guests very often. After I get your imprint set in the lock, I'll grab my spare blanket and pillows, and then go crash in my workshop. You must be exhausted by now, what with the plane trip."
The golden vixen is still dressed in her armored black jumpsuit, with the hood down to expose her fox head and long hair. She sets the Naginata Divine Mercy sniper rifle down next to the door with an audible clack.
"If we don't want to be disturbed, you mean?" Inari says slyly, her hand leaving the doorknob. "You know, in all the time we've spent together on the Ozymandias, you never talked about yourself. Why don't you introduce me..." She gestures to the walls.
"I wouldn't want to disrupt your sleep or be in the way," Jason claims as he grins a bit nervously. "As for introductions, ah, hm," he adds after he starts rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, that's wall one, it's pretty sturdy. That over there is wall two; it's a bit of a prima-donna. Wall three is a loner..."
"Oh, so they're like Randall, me, and you? Silly, I meant the pictures. They are kind of like your family, don't you think? I see two people who might be your parents." Black armored Inari glides up close to Jason, then lays her arms around his shoulders.
This puts her luminescent fox eyes and her nose and lips very, very close to Jason's face.
"Hah," Jason remarks, "I didn't mean it ..." That train of thought derails pretty quickly when he finds himself practically staring into Inari's eyes. "They're dead," he says in a markedly flat tone, then gestures towards the picture of his parents. "My parents I mean. Fifteen years or so now. Jack and Ellen. I'd love to tell you they were important people but ... not really. My father was in middle management, my mother was a teacher. Killed in an accident; drunk kid slammed his aircar into ours. Don't remember much about it, other than waking up in the hospital and being told I was the only survivor. He was tried for manslaughter, but because the police 'lost' some of the evidence he was let off." He shrugs slightly, adding, "If you count 'lost' as his parents had enough money to make the problem 'go away'."
"That's terrible!" Inari shakes her head sadly, then leans up to hug close. "I don't know if you'd consider Avatars LLC my parents... My earliest memory was meeting Akiko. She was my light, my world, my master. Our first day, she was excited when I'd actually fetch a stick for her, but my repertoire of 'tricks' got bigger in a hurry. And there were days when she'd wake up and we didn't go out for an adventure, she just burrowed her head in my fur and pet me."
"It's life in a summary; bad things happen. There is no real justice in the world," Jason admits as he returns Inari's hug. "It's funny ... your world has just kept growing, from your early days to well ... now a sensation. Mine has just contracted. I spent a few years bouncing from foster home to foster home until I could go to college. It was then I started learning how to dig; because I wanted to bust the cops for taking a bribe, but I could never get enough evidence to prove it."
The golden vixen has a definite musk, now that Jason is in a room and out of the cold. It's not bad, though wet fox might be a bad idea. "Did you ever do something about that kid?" asks Inari, looking into Jason's eyes. Her own eyes hint that if he didn't manage it, she might be willing to help...
"No, and I guess it really doesn't matter anymore. Everyone makes mistakes ... and I'm no different than him truth be told. Well, except that I do have a criminal record, though it isn't easy to find," Jason admits and shrugs.
Inari licks Jason's nose. "You are different from him, you know, just because you'd never try to erase your mistakes. And you will always be my white knight, and Akiko's. You delivered us from quiet madness." She pauses, then takes Jason's hand and leads him to the bed, sitting down and patting the spot next to her where they can look into the wall of wilderness.
"Eeeh, you have a rosy view of me," Jason admits as he settles down onto the memory-foam mattress beside Inari; sinking an inch as it settles. "I was offered a deal to work for the government in their cyberwar group for a couple years in exchange they would seal my files ... and I wouldn't serve jail time," he explains. "Granted I didn't exactly get a choice, given it was that or spending the rest of my life in a dark cell, but. And then there is Andrei of Dantech ... the man who authorized the butchering of my brain. Of course I didn't know that until the whole Avatar's incident."
"Him and Blake Forester, two of a kind." Inari squeezes Jason's hand. "I'm not a perfect woman, either. Me and Akiko, we were a pair. Then he put us together, combined us, and we went slowly mad, not just because of the Godawful scripts he put us through, but because we were losing ourselves. As much as we loved each other... We had to get away, form our own lives, or we'd never be able to heal." There is pain in her voice as she admits this. "But I keep feeling like Faust, with Voya playing Mephistopheles."
"Am I leaving Akiko out in the cold? Or is it better that the cameras don't stare at her all the time, like they do at me?" Inari asks.
"That was one reason I didn't contact you or her," Jason admits, "I wanted you two to heal; otherwise i would have felt ... like I was using either of you somehow. I just couldn't do that." He looks up at the ceiling for a few minutes, thinking. "I think it shows that you care about her and want her to choose her own way, without fame or the public trying to dictate it. You're protecting her. But I have to ask ... who is protecting you now?"
Inari looks over at Randall and Jason's picture, squeezing Jason's hand. "We Avatars have a lot of abilities, but we still see our masters as our protectors... When we're in trouble, our masters have the ability to call out our hidden abilities, to heal us, to comfort us and make the pain go away." She pauses, thinking.
"Except we're not in that world anymore," Jason says as his head tilts a bit to the side and looks at Inari consideringly. "And I have a hard time as seeing anyone as your Master. Even with myself and RIU ... it's more of a friendship than it something with connotations of control."
"Akiko isn't my master right now," Inari says softly. "That part of me... Of her... That link was warped by Blake's engineering. We were supposed to bond with the first person we saw." She looks a bit embarrassed, glancing over at Jason.
In the other room, RIU is keeping an eye out as Kimon tirelessly cleans up the debris from the attack and Tracy slumbers exhaustedly.
"She isn't your Master?" Jason asks, his brow dancing. "Er ... who is, then?"
Inari leans over and gives Jason a kiss. "I could be mean and say it's you," she whispers. "I know you'd flounder all over the place."
"I was worrying that you were going to," Jason admits, flustered and twitchy after being kissed. "Is it no one, because of what Blake did?"
RIU beeps in Jason's mind! He actually sounds jealous.
The golden vixen smiles slightly. "I think at first, I thought you were going to be my master. I kept an eye on you for a while, but it didn't seem like you wanted to. So... I went afield. I did wild things, seeing who could keep up with me, tried out different guys. Who needs a master anyway?" She looks nostalgic up at the program book of her first concert, then sings a capella. "o Now that I'm free, I can fly... And the mountains that seemed so high, are now dust beneath my wings... And I can see the sun is rising. o"
"I ... I honestly don't like the idea of anyone being beholden to me," Jason admits as he quickly finds himself rubbing the back of his own neck again, "I mean, yes, it's fun in certain daydreams, but ... in reality it just wouldn't seem right. I would prefer to have a friend over a .... servant? Not the right word but the meaning is close." It's also now his turn to look at the ceiling. "Plus ... I always have this fear I would fail. Or that the image you have of me would become tarnished in time."
Inari noses Jason. "Silly. It's not like a master and servant thing. You just know what RIU needs, and that he will be there if you ever need him, and he knows the same of you." She looks thoughtful, her eyes crossing the wall to Randall and Jason's picture. "What do you think of Akiko?"
The golden vixen's hand continues to clasp Jason's. In her eyes Jason reads more concern over her long-lost master and friend, and whether she has prospered or withered living on her own, than jealousy or worry about a rival for Jason's affections.
"Much stronger than she was four years ago. Sure of herself, happy in many ways, and beautiful. But ... with all that, she misses you," Jason answers honestly. "She needed the time to be alone and find what Blake nearly destroyed. But, I don't think she should lose what he gave her, either. You. Someone she could tell anything to."
Inari looks thoughtful. "Maybe we could develop that bond again," she murmurs. "If I could lose the deal with Voya. I don't think she'd like living in a goldfish bowl."
"I've enjoyed being a famous rock star, but now I want to know where the merry-go-round stops," the golden vixen says with a wry look.
"Contacts can be changed," Jason notes, "... with a little work. There isn't time now to figure out a way into the system, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be later."
Inari grins. "And the millions of screaming fans? Think we could throw them your protege in a fox suit?"
"Tracy? She's more like athletes foot than a protg," Jason remarks rather dryly. "I'll have to give it some thought, but something should be doable. Of course if Sasha kills me before all this is over, well.
"Well, at least I feel like there's finally a way out," Inari says, grinning. She suddenly pounces! and pins Jason down to the bed. "Now, about that rain check..."
"Bwah!" goes Jason as he finds himself on his back and sinking into the bed. "What, am I to be one more of your conquests?" he asks in a frustratingly neutral tone, "Another guy to try?"
The golden vixen's eyes look down at Jason as she eyes him speculatively, leaning down to lick him across one cheek, over his nose, then down the other. "What do you want to be?"
Inari seems wild and dangerous and sexy, but even as she's playfully toying with Jason's jumpsuit fastenings, pretending to be predatory, Jason has an odd intuition that she really means it - if Jason wants her to be his girlfriend, she just might find it satisfying. And if he just wants a moment of joy, well she will have at least given that much to the person who brought her out of the darkness and made her a creature of light.
"To mean more than that," Jason admits in a moment of honesty as he can't help himself and looks cross-eyed at his own nose. "Not that playing the role wouldn't be fun ... and probably fulfill a few fantasies, but if I don't mean more than that, well... I just don't want to be someone to throw away. I can't say what the future holds, but maybe tonight I should see what happens if I stop running." His lips curl back in a bemused smile as he adds, "And I keep a stocked first aid kit in the bathroom, so ... lets both just see where things lead."
"You gave me life," Inari whispers as she reaches up to dim the light, then slowly pulls unfolding panel after panel of the armored jumpsuit. "You mean so much more to me than a single night can possibly give."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-02-27-the-morning-after.htmlTuesday, December 3, 9:00 AM Eastern
The early morning light casts long shadows through the wreckage of Reality Check's lobby. Two bland-looking Eagle Security rent-a-cops stand in front of what used to be a door, before some Wild Hunt crazies threw a grenade at it - though it didn't help the situation any when Jason then drove Miguel's taxi into it, smashing in the wall adjoining the conference room. Things have been cleaned up at least a bit with Holly (taking Wide Awake pills) monitoring the guards overnight: the taxi now stands parked next to one of the "abandoned cars", the debris has been shoveled out, and large panels of plastic have been hammered up to keep the cold out, with a makeshift door that at least closes and locks. More complete repairs will have to wait.
Kimon displays the morning news on one of the large computer screens in the main room. The current top story seems to be that the Children of Earth, a radical environmental protection group, is filing an injunction against the Zeus Weather Administration Program, claiming that the ionic radiation from the pylons already being constructed worldwide may cause critical damage to the ozone layer. "We've only just recovered from the last ozone rift," the CoE spokesperson complains. "Why are we risking it all for the sake of sunnier days? We need to let the Earth heal!"
After some really bad nightmares, Tracy gives up on sleeping in so ends up starting the day at her usual time, around six in the morning. This involves shuffling into the kitchen to get out one of Cadena's gourmet doggy meals (rabbit stew this time) and setting out fresh water while it heats up. She sniffs her pajamas and wrinkles her nose. Too much night-mare sweat; she'll need to do laundry.
In the kitchen area, Tracy finds Cadena busily cleaning up a mess, and the air smells heavily of carbonized foodstuffs, air freshener, and chemical cleaners. It looks as if some sort of cooking disaster happened quietly while she was still sleeping. Judging from Cadena's expression, it also looks as if he was sincerely hoping to get it cleaned up before any humans could witness it. "Oh," is all he has to say, then quickly, "I hope your sleep was undisturbed?"
Tracy stares blankly at the mess. "I dreamt I was being chased by the Wild Hunt through a burning building," she admits quietly. "What.. were you trying to cook something, Cadena?"
Cadena's ears droop. "I am unfamiliar with the surroundings, and ... I suspect that some of these containers might have been repurposed and are not properly labeled. Perhaps." He continues scrubbing furiously at the floor, his forepaws in poorly-fitting, scrunched-up banana-yellow protective gloves.
"But.. why?" Tracy asks, slouching a bit. "My cooking isn't that bad, is it?"
The smiling North Bend Morning News reporter continues, "Voya spokesmen confirmed this morning that the famous singer Inari has gone missing, apparently from the time that she arrived in North Bend on her private jet. Fans throughout the world are holding candlelight vigils and saying prayers that she returns safe and sound from whatever accident has befallen her." Still images of Inari appear, along with video of her dancing with Jason in the airport lobby. Beneath, a caption appears: "Who is Mr. X?"
Cadena's ears perk and he glances in the direction of the newscast, but they droop again. "It is meant as no judgement upon your cooking abilities, of which admittedly I have had hardly an opportunity to sample, let alone to critique. I simply hoped to make myself useful by freeing you from the drudgery of morning preparations - particularly since this morning we are not being awakened by, for instance, a terrorist attack upon the building for once."
"He's tired, that's who," mutters a voice from the workshop just off the kitchen. "And getting old. He can't stay up like he used to. Glerh. And stiff ... and talking to himself again. I blame it on having guests."
A different voice, female, says muzzily, "Candlelight vigils? What am I now, a religious icon?"
This seems to mollify Tracy a bit, although it makes her lips purse. "We didn't have dinner last night either," she notes, and looks towards the door to the workshop. "I'll cook something after I clean up a bit. It sounds like Jason is a-" she cuts off when she hears Inari's voice as well.
zzt! zzt! Kimon reports, "You have an incoming video call from Holly Trudeau, Jason and Tracy."
"People are crazy," Jason offers on the workshop. "Granted, you are worshippable, but still. They haven't even met you. Oy. And the Zeus news is more important; I don't trust it does what they claim. They should focus on that; not on the antics of the world's most infamous musician."
Cadena's ears twitch, and he cuts off whatever he was about to say, at the announcement from Kimon. He props himself up against the counter, wringing out a sponge in the sink. Whatever nanotech wonders Jason might have available in his kitchen for cleaning up messes, it seems that Cadena's mostly familiar with the relatively low-tech solutions.
"It's too early for mom to ruin my day," Tracy complains, and turns on the coffee maker before pushing open the doors to the workshop. "C'mon, Caddy, maybe she's got some answers for your VR weirdness."
Cadena perks up at that, and leaves the gloves and sponge in the sink, pausing to cap the cleaner bottle and tuck it back under the counter. "I certainly hope so - and, really, should you complain about your mother so? Has she no reason to check on you after all that has happened in so short a time? I'd be more concerned if she were aloof." He trots after Tracy.
Inari, dressed in one of Jason's t-shirts and pajamas, looks all muzzy and fuzzy. Evidently she doesn't focus well until she's had coffee. "Where's the kitchen?" she asks of Jason. "I need something black. And strong. With a dose of perk-me-up."
Holly's videophone call continues to ring insistently.
"Back that way," Tracy mutters to Inari as she heads for the phone, and looks to see how well Jason survived sleeping in his office chair.
Jason's pulling on an old tee-shirt over a half-bandaged upper torso; probably putting pressure on the impact point from the rubber bullet. IT, however, does not explain the myriad of fine scratches on his lower back that quickly vanish under his shirt. "The kitchen is through the back door," he explains, gesturing towards the swinging doors Tracy came through. "And Kimon, patch the call through, speaker. Maybe this will be entertaining."
Tracy sits near the holo pickup, and pinches her nose. "What's that musky smell?" she asks Jason.
"Probably the air vents are acting up from the building being attacked," Jason claims.
The video call pops up on the screen, overlaying the ongoing Inari coverage. "Good morning," says Holly, looking unnaturally bright and awake for someone who's been up all night, but Tracy notices she seems to have a few extra lines in her face. She's holding a doughnut, to go with her mug of coffee. "Are you all right? It looks like you got up to some excitement last night."
Cadena seats himself next to Tracy, sitting up straight, ears perked, tail wagging slightly at the sight of the elder Trudeau on screen. He stays silent, however, so as not to interrupt mother-daughter time.
"I am starving," Tracy mutters, and brushes hair out of her face. "I missed dinner. Do the guards have donuts, mom?"
Holly checks. "Yes, dear. If you ask nicely, they may give you one."
"Well, Randall was rescued last night, I was shot, and Merv's Mercs have been broken pretty badly. They've also hopefully set their targets on Irongrip now," Jason summarizes for Holly. "And Inari is here. I assume you figured that much out from the news."
"I apologize for the trouble regarding your daughter's nutritional needs, Mrs. Trudeau," Cadena says, ears drooping again. "I would have taken care of the matter myself this morning, but I was a bit unfamiliar with the layout of the kitchen, and.... Well, I'm confident that things are back in order, at the very least, but I haven't yet seen to our breakfast."
"I can cook breakfast," Tracy claims. "Jason ate some once and didn't get sick."
Holly laughs. "I suspected! But it's nice to know. Do you need a doctor?"
"Nothing requiring medical attention has transpired to my knowledge," Cadena answers. He rises from his seated position. "With your permission, Mistress Tracy, I shall go visit the guards and see if some arrangement might be made for breakfast, though I hope we can manage better than donuts."
"Uh, okay, just don't startle them," Tracy urges. "I don't know if they're expecting you to talk or not.."
"A doctor? No. But if Cadena keeps calling Tracy 'Mistress', you may need to order her a bull whip and leather clothing," Jason remarks as he stifles a yawn.
The news program switches to coverage of local affairs. The reporter says chirpily, "And now, breaking news on the CERT officer attack yesterday! Despite early claims, the officer is not dead; in fact, late last night, when rival gangs clashed, he was able to take advantage of the confusion and turn the table on his captors. Four of the notorious armed vehicle robbery gang Mav's Mavericks have been arrested, but the rest are feared to be at large."
"Actually, they're barricaded in at the old car shop," Jason remarks to the newscast. "The ones that aren't dead, anyway."
Cadena nods to Tracy, then trots off, presumably to take care of making some sort of arrangements for breakfast - perhaps not involving potential kitchen mishaps this time.
Holly shakes her head. "I don't think so! Anyway, I just pinged Randall, he's fine. Want him on the line too?"
"Mom, can you email me a White Cadena avatar?" Tracy asks next. "We need to find out why Cadena got all wonky in VR, and I have to see if having a proper Avatar makes a difference."
"I'm sure Inari can loan her one, then," Jason comments to Holly. "And sure, patch goatee-boy in. Maybe the mercs did us all a favor and shaved his face."
Holly shakes her head. "I like the beard," she admits. "At least when he keeps it trimmed. I'm sure we have stock white dog avatars, but I'm not so sure about a White Cadena... That gets into rule sets and such."
One of the Eagle Security guards knocks at the workshop door from the lobby. "I heard someone in here wants some donuts!" he says.
"He only grew it because he thinks it makes him look more intellectual to stroke it while thinking," Jason claims.
Cadena barks (quietly) happily.
"Yes!" Tracy says, jumping up and running to the door in her pajamas. "Thank you.." she reads the nametag.. "George!"
Another window pops open. Sure enough, Randall is rubbing his beard. Behind him is Akiko, looking sleepy, and his run-down apartment filled up with a lot of Mara. "I heard that! But you should try it, a good beard is a total chick magnet." He peers through the camera at Inari, coming out of the kitchen with a cup of instant coffee. "Though whatever you've got, it's working for you."
A tiny Chinese dragon swoops over to perch on Jason's shoulder and begins washing his ear.
"I've got a tongue in my ear," Jason complains and bats lightly at the dragon perched on his shoulder. "And I'm glad to see you in once piece. I was worried that Tracy would somehow blow you up in the process of attempting a rescue," he claims.
"I have donuts, Randall!" Tracy taunts as she returns to her chair.
RIU chirps and warbles! It curls around to wash the other ear.
Inari winks at Randall. "It's the dragon. Cute little dragons are total chick magnets. Not that big ones don't do well at that, too." Mara snoozes, but Akiko blushes.
Jason sighs in a long-suffering way. "Okay, okay, I'll take a shower this morning!" he relents. "How is Mara fairing after the missile attack?" he asks Randall.
Cadena, although still in "dumb dog" mode as long as "George" is around, nonetheless perks up and looks more attentive at the topic of Mara. He cocks his head to one side curiously.
George shares half a box of donuts with Tracy. "Any time, miss! We're going to order some real breakfast in soon, want us to get some for you too?"
The Hispanic CERT officer smiles warmly. "Better, now that we're at home. If we've got to, she can fly in a pinch, but my plan is to airlift her to Palmdale, she'll be able to heal up there."
"Do you need us to meet you there?" Jason asks.
Holly asks curiously, "What about my daughter? You didn't mention Tracy to the news reporters, did you?"
"Is there a menu?" Tracy asks.
George shrugs. "Typical short-order breakfast sorta place, but hey, they'll deliver!"
"Ham and eggs, over easy, with hash browns and waffles and a side of sausage and bacon.. and a fruit cup," Tracy orders, getting the extra meat for Cadena.
"Got it, miss," George says. "What about the rest of you?" Inari orders a chicken fried steak with hash browns on the side.
Jason reaches over and swipes the donut bag while Tracy is distracted with ordering food. "Holly, what do you know about the Zeus system? I don't trust it entirely. Considering it likely uses EMF to manipulate airflow and the like, it could also be used as a gate system to punch quantum holes between realities. Plus it likely draws power fro solar arrays, so would have in independent power."
"Bacon and hash browns for me," Jason tells George as he examines the donut spoils.
Randall shakes his head. "Nah, we should be fine. I figured you didn't want your daughter in the news... Any more than she already is... So I spun the newsies a story, told them that some guys started shooting up the place. Seems like this Irongrip guy's been making some waves in the Dregs, trying to push the idea that all the gangs should stop fighting each other, it's a 'waste of people and material', that they could get a lot more done if they combined forces."
George nods. "Sure thing!" He pats the dog and goes back to the front.
Cadena sneaks up on Jason while he's engaging in technobabble.
"Uniting the Dregs... It sounds like a joke, but they did shoot down Randall," Holly muses, then turns to Jason. "The Zeus project? I hadn't looked at it, but I can run it by our head scientists, see what they think."
The white dog, brilliantly lit up by the light from the video phone, ever-so-gingerly reaches up to try to nab the donut bag while Jason's attention is averted ... but then tries to look innocent when it's clear that he isn't quite ready to pull a fast one on the techie.
And Cadena ends up with a donut placed atop of his head like a little gooey crown for his troubles! "Nice try, Captain Canine," Jason remarks, amused.
Cadena considers this a small success, and trots back to Tracy, balancing the donut on his head, and politely offering it to her without besmirching it with dog paw or mouth. (Fur, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.)
"Please do. The timing of everything worries me a bit," Jason admits, "But I'm also paranoid about such things. I would have had Kimon just collect research for me, but, well ... we've been a little busy with kidnapping international stars and breaking up gangs down here."
"Hey," Tracy complains when she sees Jason with the donuts. "Don't you know old people should avoid starchy foods?" She takes the donut from Cadena... and then offers it right back to the dog. "For being a good and honest friend, I give you this donut."
Cadena gratefully takes it as his reward. (Munch.)
"The only one that will suffer if I get gassy is you," Jason points out all too cheerfully as he liberates a donut form himself, then offers the bag to Inari.
Randall says wryly, "Well, I had a lot of time to chat with 'em while I was being held captive. But that wasn't the whole gang down there in that base, though that was their supply depot and armory. Seems like they really do have a guy named Mav. Desoto used to run the Junkyard Dogs, but they got absorbed into Mav's gang, and Desoto sold himself as the ideal guy to run their armory and, ah, 'add onto it'."
Inari snarfs a donut. "Yum! Duamutef's Bacon Center Donut, my favorite."
"I like the jelly and cream filled ones," Tracy notes, eyeing the back. "Mom won't let dad have those, so I get them all. Oh, Jason, I need to pick your brain too."
Holly clears her throat. "Anyway, before I forget... Your friend Mike Dexter is fine and resting up in our infirmary. He claims he doesn't need any micro-scans but our doctors are insisting on a full workup; VR/reality distortion damage can be very subtle. And I did a little 'enhanced interviewing' of your old Wild Hunt buddy, Mark Berkowitz..." She waves her donut for emphasis.
"If you're interested, Desoto and his crew are probably still trapped at the car shop. I can send you coordinates if you want to grab them. I was hoping they would start attacking Irongrip after this, but eh. Sending them to jail has appeal too," Jason remarks to the screen. His donut is ... plain glazed. "Pick my brain about what?" he asks as he reclines his chair back and asks Tracy.
Randall waves a hand. "Wait, wait, who's Mark?"
"One of Tracy's old tongue-wrestling friends," Jason explains and waves a half-eaten donut, "Who tried to kidnap her."
"We did not tongue-wrestle!" Tracy claims, making a grab for the donut bag. "That's not even a thing!"
"Really! I miss all the good stuff when I'm in the pokey," Randall complains. "I didn't even know Tracy had tongue-wrestling friends!"
Akiko blushes. "You guys," she says, slugging Randall's shoulder. He ouches obligingly.
"So ... did Akiko tend to your injuries last night?" Jason asks Randall and grins at Akiko. He even manages to do this while protectively juggling the donut bag! Apparently years of office-chair work has developed his fine skills of donut-chair-juggle-foo.
Tracy narrows her eyes as Jason jerks the bag away. "If you don't give me a donut, I'm going to sit in your lap again," she whispers.
"And then you'll smell like me," Jason counter-whispers but ends up tossing the donut bag to her anyway.
"I was gonna take a shower anyway," Tracy grumbles as she searches the bag. "I need you to help me test Cadena later.. after you've washed that smell off."
Cadena sits back down, looking somewhat chastened.
"Test Cadena? I don't know ... isn't that a little personal?" Jason asks.
Holly continues, "Anyway, if you ask me, he's a typical adrenaline junky... Kind of like the freerunners you hang out with, Tracy, he's got to prove he can take on any challenge. But we did run some neural scans and he does seem to have mild conditioning. Not quite brainwashed, but more likely to lose distinction between VR and RL, take risks, treat his VR responsibilities as equally or more important than his RL ones... It's raising some serious questions on what Dantech does with their players."
Akiko sticks her tongue out at Jason. Pbblt!
"It's hardly different from what advertisers try to do to get you to buy stuff," Jason points out to Holly and downs his remaining donut fragment. "And oh, Akiko ... if you want I can build you a better control interface for that giant robot thing you were driving the other night," he offers her in spite of her raspberry, and winks to her.
"Unless it's an AD doing it through the system," Tracy suggests. "All sorts of weird stuff happened to Cadena when he connected up. We need to know why!"
"I really don't want to, but maybe I need to actually log into this goofy game and look around myself," Jason grumbles. "I like regular reality; it's plenty weird enough as it is."
The news program cuts to on-the-scene footage of the police investigating the abandoned subway station. Miss North Bend Morning News says, "Police are still searching for the Einhorn Crowd Protection Mecha that comprised the majority of the 1.5 million New Dollar shipment that was lost the other day. It seems to been assembled and put into place, and bullet holes matching its caliber of gun have been identified in the walls of the station. The lead detective on the case theorizes that it was captured by rival gang members, who then drove it off; the confusion in the meantime allowed Lieutenant Cranston to daringly turn the table on his captors."
"I think something more controlled would be better to start with, " Tracy says. "I need you to monitor what's going on with Cadena's interface."
Cadena ducks his head. "My analysis of the events that occurred during my foray into the Gloaming is incomplete. I neglected to initiate a session log when entering the session, and I made too many assumptions about the interface. I cannot be certain how much of my experience - that which was not directly witnessed by Tracy and others - was real, and how much may have been a product of faulty memory associations. My behavior in VR showed a clear disconnect, loss of priorities, and failure to react to my environment in logical fashion. This level of uncertainty calls into question my reliability."
Tracy silently prays that her mother will not ask about the Einhorn mech or her role in dealing with it..
Randall grins. "Oh, I was a perfect gentleman," he assures Jason. "I slept in the papasan chair over there, Akiko got my bed. Not that I didn't think about offering her a little nightcap to help her sleep after all the excitement..." Akiko slugs his shoulder again. Ow!
Holly eyes Jason suspiciously.
"Jason slept in the workshop and apparently rolled around in something stinky," Tracy notes.
Cadena breaks out of his moping expression to look up with an expression of respect for Randall.
"It's easier to monitor signals if I'm half-inside the system," Jason notes as he now idly spins his desk chair. He tries to kick Tracy's shin during one of the spins.
Randall beams. "Good thing we haven't invented smell-o-vision yet!"
"Actually we did, but it didn't test well in market research," Holly notes.
Cadena asides to Jason, "Something less than a full neural interface on your first visit would be advisable. In my experience, there was no external control overlay that I could perceive at all. I was not able to disconnect voluntarily from the system without Tracy's external intervention."
Holly frowns. "If you want to come back to the Avatars labs, we can do a checkup if you like, Cadena."
"And are you going to stay with Randall for a while, Akiko, or going to join us in Hotel Edwards?" Jason asks. "I need to buy a few more beds, I think."
"But then," Cadena adds, looking back to Holly apologetically, "I believe the particulars should be covered in extensive detail in my report."
"If it's just Akiko, she can use the fold-out with me," Tracy offers. "If she can fit in my clothes, then she can fit in the bed too."
Cadena blurts out, "Wouldn't Ms. Summers be safer with an honorable officer of the law?"
Akiko leans over Randall's shoulder, looking minxish. "I do have a perfectly good apartment, you know!" she says to Jason and Tracy. "And I do enjoy sleeping in my own bed, as much fun as it would be to make you groan about 'another mouth to feed'. Why, are you going to go into the bed-and-breakfast business?"
"Or she could join Inari in my room," Jason suggests.
"Are you implying we aren't honorable?" Jason then quickly asks Cadena.
Akiko blinks and looks at Inari, then at Jason. Her eyes narrow.
"No insult was intended," Cadena says. "It was merely a qualifier added to emphasize my certainty that such an arrangement seems reasonable under the present circumstances."
"But.. where would we find an honorable police officer?" Tracy asks, completely straight-faced.
Inari leans up against the back of Jason's chair. "We could kick Jason out of his own room and build a pillow fort," she says to Akiko, her chin resting on Jason's head as RIU complains in little beeps and whistles. There's something a bit wistful about her voice.
Randall objects, "I'm an honorable pirate officer-- er, I mean, police officer!"
"Oh, well, insult received intentional or not," Jason notes and then just as easily shrugs it off. His chair spin stops and he leans back, propping his feet up on his desk. "Have there been any notable power surges in California or more local to us last night?" he asks both Holly and Kimon. "I have to wonder if attacking us is also just meant as a distraction from the real plans," he adds as he leans his head back and ends up looking up at the underside of Inari's chin.
"Is his bed even big enough for two people?" Tracy asks Inari. "I figured it'd be a sort of.. cot.."
Cadena, uncertain at the direction of at least one thread of this chaotic conversation, opens his mouth as if to say something, but then seems taken aback just trying to follow it all.
RIU resumes washing Jason's face on the side that it can reach.
Holly looks between videophone sessions. "Kids," she mutters to herself. "Anyway, my Wide Awake's wearing off. Is there anything else before I go collapse into my own cot?"
"Uhm ... yes, please, Ms. Trudeau?" Cadena suddenly pipes up, almost jumping up to his feet.
"Is it at all possible, if I did not have a running log recording activated in my neural induction headset," Cadena offers, struggling over the particulars, "to somehow recover trace data that might shed some light on the data transferred during my session? For example, perhaps stored on a buffer somewhere on an exchange server that hasn't yet been overwritten, or some sort of latent temporary files that could pertain residue from which the session could be at least partially recreated?"
"Would you like me to find a way to get Inari to your apartment, Akiko?" Jason asks the session with Randall. "You two haven't gotten a chance to catch up and talk yet."
Holly frowns. "I don't know if Dantech does the same, but Avatars LLC strips server logs within an hour that aren't mandatory for us to keep, to retain common carrier protection. Avoids subpoenas and complaints that we should be monitoring the service for criminals. If there's any data available, it'll be on your headset... But there probably won't be anything much."
"And we can't hack Cadena's actual memory right?" Tracy asks.
"And the offer about the control interface stands! It would allow you to help us without having to always be in the middle of the gunfight," Jason adds. "And check in to make sure we're safe."
Akiko, long black hair half-hanging over her face, looks stormy until Jason speaks, then pauses. "That'd be nice, but... Aren't you worried about people spotting her?"
"Well, not without access to one of the full neural scanners," Holly says. "If you bring him by, Chaz can set you up."
"Then I should see what can be recovered before my headset is used for any further experiments," Cadena says hastily. "If there is any evidence of interaction with the entity who I for whatever reason identified as the WHITE, or the entity who self-identified as an agent of the BLACK, I would like to find out. I must find out whether this was wholly a misremembering on my part, or whether such entities actually exist in some form - and if they DO exist, whether there are any clues as to how to make contact, so as to better understand their motivations, particularly if either party may wish ill upon the Trudeau family."
"There's always a risk, yes, but it's worth it if it means you would get to reunite with her for a little bit," Jason says. "I'll give it some thought and see what I can come up with. She'll probably hit me for telling you this; but she did mention to me last night she misses you."
George comes back with boxes of food. "I'll just put your food on the table," he says, setting down the boxes. "Say, you've got a Hispanic guy out front, wants to talk to you, Mr. Edwards. Something about his taxi."
Inari nips Jason's right ear.
"And sure we can hack his memory!" Jason pipes up, adding to the other conversation, "I have a chain saw in here somewh ... ow!"
Cadena promptly clamps up once he hears "George," and just makes an inarticulate whine.
George smiles at Tracy. "Don't worry about the bill," he assures her. "We'll just charge it to expenses."
"Taxi? Oh, right, the one that ate the front office," Jason grumbles. He has to sit upright now and extract himself from Inari and RIU. "Tell him I'll be there in a couple minutes, providing I'm not killed by the people in here."
"Hooray for expenses!" Tracy says, sorting through the food and holding out a sausage for Cadena.
"Righty-dokey, Mr. Edwards," the Eagle Security guard says as he heads back out of the lobby. "Yell if you need us to save your bacon."
Cadena seems unresponsive to the (admittedly generous) offer of sausage, just looking forlornly up at the video display.
Akiko softens. "Thanks, Jason. I do mean that. I won't use the mech to stomp you, I promise!"
Inari mutters sotto voce, "That was a danger before?"
"All in a day's work! Securing companies and reuniting families. It's Reality-Check for Relationships!" Jason declares. The hacker then blinks and adds, "I really need to get more sleep. That was dorky." So, shaking his head the entire way he heads towards the front entrance to deal with thee taxi driver.
Once Jason is out of hearing range, Tracy turns to Inari and asks, "So, did Jason really sleep out here by himself last night?"
Inari slips into Jason's warm chair and looks unfairly photogenic, even in a borrowed T-shirt and pajamas. She tilts her head. "What do you think?" she whispers back.
"I think you both need to wash that musk off," Tracy says, collecting food to carry in to the kitchen.
Holly sighs. "All right, that's it before I conk out and unappealingly smush my face against the camera," she says to Cadena. "Call my husband if you need anything, or Chaz if you need help with the science bits."
"Him first, you wouldn't like the shower after I'm done," Inari says with a laugh.
Randall looks up at Akiko. "Looking at people enjoying their breakfast is making me hungry. Want to help an invalid go get a bite of something to eat?"
Cadena bows his head. "Thank you, Mrs. Trudeau. I will consult with Mr. Edwards regards what capabilities are available on premises first, then contact regarding anything for which we do not have sufficient resources. I apologize deeply for any inconvenience this may cause, but I am grateful for the opportunity you have provided me and the honor of your trust."
Out front, Miguel beams. "Ah, Senor Jason! So, I have come to pick up my taxi," he says in a broad Mexican accent. "But, it is not starting up! Maybe you can fix?"
"Uh, maybe?" Jason says hesitantly.
"We need to look at check your gear for sabotage or weird add-ons too, Cadena," Tracy says as she retreats to the kitchen. "Sleep well Mom!"
Miguel adds, "Tell the pretty senorita that she should get better boyfriend." He leads Jason over to the taxi. It looks as if the crash knocked the starter out of alignment, to Jason's practiced eye. It doesn't help that the front looks pretty beaten up now, but it's mostly superficial hull damage.
Holly smiles. "Be safe, sweetheart." Her videophone call pops off the screen.
"That's going to need a good hammering and some body filler," Jason remarks when he sees the hull damage firsthand. Maybe even a little more after he has to use a crowbar to get the hood open. "You're also lucky that these things were built like a tank; the main engine controls and the like haven't been crushed. Just looks like the starter coil has been jarred loose. Should be able to fix this relatively quickly.."
"Let me grab some tools and I can probably get this running enough to get it back to the maintenance shop of your parent company," Jason adds as he wipes his hands on his pants. "I'll be right back!"
Miguel nods. "Take your time! The nice guards, they are sharing their donuts."
In the kitchen, Tracy sets out the sausage and bacon for Cadena, and scarfs down her own breakfast. "Who handled your VR gear last, before you were sent to me, Cadena?" she asks between mouthfuls.
"Do I really stink?" Jason asks RIU as he returns to the workshop and grabs a large toolbox of disorganized tools.
Randall wisely lets Akiko have his chair and goes offscreen, while she and Inari have a talk.
RIU beep-booops emphatically!
"Everyone is so sensitive," Jason mutters as he rolls his eyes. "I'll be back in a bit! Please don't break my home," he says as he vanishes back out to help Miguel.
Cadena ponders snatching the sausage, but needs his mouth free for the moment. "All of my gear was shipped out directly from Avatars LLC's shipping facility, at the direction of your mother. All of my gear was cleaned and checked prior to my assumption of a new assignment." Then he snatches up the sausage.
"... and no, Jason does not sleep on a cot," Inari laughingly confides to Akiko as Jason passes in.
"I'm better off not knowing what they talk about," Jason mutters to himself, leaving the workroom in a hurry.
"So.. probably not tampered with," Tracy decides. "It could have just been a sense-mapping issue causing.. no, that makes no sense either. Something recognized you and launched a specific response. We'll have to see if there's a workaround to at least get you an interface.. I think these are chocolate-chip waffles!"
Akiko covers her face. "I'm going to regret this, but..." Jason is out of earshot by then.
Miguel is munching on an apple-filled donuts. "These are good," he proclaims as Jason rejoins him. "I usually just have the breakfast burrito. Everything you need to get through day!"
"Either something recognized me and launched a specific response," Cadena notes, "or else there was a failure in my sympathetic resp--" He breaks off, then says, "That is, unless this can be verified through an outside source, it could have been a failure in my mental processes - a hallucination induced by immersion into an unfamiliar virtual environment, and a reaction due to a compatibility failure with my neural induction headset. I am not human, after all, and even what I recall would suggest a state of extreme disorientation."
"And to kill your customers," Jason mutters. Soon he's leaning into the engine area and tinkering. "Voltage point needs to be at least 10K to ignite these old systems," he remarks to himself and starts adjusting the starter coil. The occasional burst of blue light and the reek of ozone that follows ... well, ought to be worrying and yet Jason works away as if it were no big deal.
"With a failure in the neural induction system," Cadena notes, "that could have resulted in a loss of external sensory input, without an alternate sensory stream to replace it, thus prompting me to fall into a dream-like state, and thus calling into question the reality of my experience from any objective point of view."
"Well, if it's something to do with you, we can test it," Tracy notes, gesturing with her fork. "It should happen again, after all.. but we'll use one of my v-scapes and Jason's computers, so he can monitor what's going on."
The security guards nod to Jason as he passes by. "Pretty nasty attack you had here, Mr. Edwards," George says. "Looks like the scavengers came out in force. Maybe they're running out of junk to strip from the Dregs."
Cadena nods. "I have every confidence that Mr. Edwards has the technical expertise required to look into such a situation, based upon demonstrations of his capabilities so far. I believe that the sensible thing for me to do is to simply wait until such time as he is available and not occupied by more pressing matters - though I do wish there were some way that I could properly repay him for his efforts."
"What do you think of Inari?" Tracy asks the dog out of the blue.
Miguel shivers. "The Dregs. Very bad place. Always worried about stopping there when I drop someone off."
"Tell me about it. It was nasty," Jason remarks as he works. "It also bothers me that all my non-lethal defenses didn't deter them at all. I'm loathe to upgrade everything to lethal responses, but ... if this continues I may have to."
George nods agreement. "These days people don't take ya seriously unless you've got something that says 'I'm licensed to kill' up front. We do a lot of business with customers like that, they don't realize just how bad things are going until something happens... then they call us in."
The white dog opens his mouth, looking aghast and taken off guard. "In what context? I feel ill-equipped to offer any meaningful response based on what little information I have so far. I can only say that she is curiosity-provoking, particularly given what you have told me earlier, and the strange things that Mr. Edwards seems inclined to merely hint at vaguely in his jesting way. I feel ill-equipped to fill in the blanks."
"Yeah, I feel ill-equipped around her too," Tracy replies, and sets down her fork. "I'm full. Want the rest of my ham and eggs?"
"Yes, well, I'm not particularly inclined to kill people," Jason remarks after another burst of blue fills the engine bay. "Sane people would run away after having their entire nervous system lit up like New Years Eve, but ... I guess sanity is sorely lacking these days. I'll have to raise the current levels to just fry people on the spot."
"That is quite generous of you, but I shall, with regret, decline the offer," Cadena says. "I fear that my nervousness has robbed me of my appetite, though that donut may have contributed to it as well."
George says with professional concern, "No, no, you'd get accidental manslaughter out of that. You want real security guards like me and Luke here, or maybe rent some of our security 'bots. It's all about threat and presence. We're here..." He points at his eyes. "And lookin' at any potential malefactors. They don't see eyes, they don't feel threatened."
"Feel like running around a bit?" Tracy asks. "There's the garden on the roof, which should be safe. I need to take a quick shower and start laundry - I just realized that Akiko is wearing my only other set of clean clothes."
Miguel argues as Jason works on the engine, "Good defense, very good, but sometimes better not to be there in first place. I like being taxi driver. Can always get away from trouble. Well, if taxi is working."
"Don't think I don't recognize the sales attempt, George," Jason laughs. "Scare tactics are always useful in getting a new client." Another tweak, then he tells Miguel as he extracts himself from the engine bay, "Try to start it."
"Yes, but ..." Cadena looks briefly thoughtful, then says, "In all honesty, and in full awareness that anything I have to say here will no doubt be picked up by Kimon and thus be likely accessible to Mr. Edwards, I find Inari to be intriguing, and to challenge my perception of the origin of sapience and the nature of artificial intelligence. I have been particularly perplexed by the idea that at one point, Ms. Summers and Inari were a single entity, and yet by some means they were separated into two individuals. Even if, in some sense, they were separate entities before, I still have great difficulty reconciling this notion of individuality. At what point did Inari become Inari, and is the current Inari a continuation of the Inari that existed before? And, is Ms. Summers truly the same, human Ms. Summers she was before?"
George laughs. "Sorry, sir, it's just part of the job training. They teach us this sort of thing in classes, why having a turret and a camera isn't the same as having some Joe standin' guard."
Miguel slides in eagerly behind the wheel and tries the key. vrrRRrroom The fans start blowing dust and bits of fine debris around.
"Humans can't be sure they're the same person they were just a year or two in the past, so as bizarre as the situation may seem.. it isn't outside normal human experience, I think," Tracy notes. "Whatever Inari was when she was separated, it's four years in the past, and she's not that person anymore. Nobody stays the same."
"Okay, it should get you to a real garage," Jason notes as he puts his tools away and closes the clasps on the toolbox lid. "And as for the sales pitch, I'll consider it," he tells George then heads for the workshop, and presumably the shower in his bedroom, next.
George agrees. "Right on, sir!" Miguel effusively thanks Jason before he departs muttering "Boss is gonna kill me..."
Cadena nods. "I am aware of that aspect, though ... I am failing once more to articulate my ... concern? No, that is not the right way to put it. I regret that anything I have to say on the matter is not fully formulated, and given the lack of our ability to communicate without, as it were, others who might be listening in and misunderstanding the context, I should probably leave it at that without complicating the matter further."
"Is it because she was part AI?" Tracy asks. "I mean, I think her personality and started out as Akiko imaginary friend or something.. you should probably ask her," Tracy says, and gets up. "I'll be a few minutes, just need to wash off the sweat."
Cadena nods and bows.
As Jason passes through the workshop on his way to the shower, he can't help but hear Akiko and Inari reminiscing about life on the Ozymandias, when they had to share a body. "... so that's why I kept waking up with Jason looking at me funny!"
"Lalalalala!" Jason says loudly as he walks through the workshop to avoid hearing too much! He's quickly through his bedroom door, presumably off to shower!
Cadena trots by as well, and shivers as a chill runs down his spine. His ears duck, and he bows, apologetic as he backs out of the workshop, having forgotten that there was a private conversation going on in there.
Inari grins. "Hey, you... What was your name again? Cadena?" She snaps her fingers, as if calling the dog over.
Tracy's shower is quick, since she's just washing off dried sweat (and had plenty of time the night before to apply her hair straightener and such). All that's left in her duffel is her Spandex exercise outfit and robe, so she wears those, with the crane-print neo-kimono bathroom covering everything anyway. Then it's just collecting her underwear, jumpsuit and bed sheets to carry out to the washer-dryer. The sneak-suit will need to be hand-washed of course, and an enzyme scrub applied to scramble any DNA of hers left behind.
The white dog pads back over, reflexively adopting a dumb dog expression ... before a split second later it occurs to him that, yes, he's been talking in full view of the both of these people anyway, so there's hardly any reason for the instinctive facade. He bows. "I am called Cadena, AVA-808-X024, experimental 'Real Avatar' companion, property of Avatars LLC. I am patterned after the in-game White Cadena avatar archetype, metal-elemental type."
The golden vixen smirks. "Just what I was going to ask," she says, reaching down to scratch behind his ears, her other hand tracing the markings on his face. "Are you sure you're not like me? An Avatar thrust into the real world, finding some real job to keep body and soul together?"
"That is an experimental role pattern," Cadena says, blankly. "I am a prototype, and based on prior trial runs, my ability to adapt to immersive roleplay while adhering to higher-priority directives is severely flawed. Hence, for this assignment I am abandoning any pretense of having any connection...." He blinks. "For complete details regarding this flaw in my neural conditioning, questions should be directed to my project sponsor, Mrs. Holly Trudeau, Vice President of Security at Avatars LLC." He then begins to recite contact information.
Inari frowns, studying Cadena, then his collar. "Do you ever find yourself dreaming of another life?" she asks. "Worlds sparkling in endless space, boats adrift in a black sea? Dragons and monsters and Light and Darkness opposing one another?"
"Or maybe dreaming of a life when you didn't have four paws, but hands and feet? Maybe you dreamed of being a little boy or girl in class, and the teacher would call your name and ask you a question," Inari continues. "But when you tried to answer, all that came out was barking?"
Akiko watches Cadena, looking suddenly concerned.
"Yes," Cadena says, blinking, as the life seems to return to his eyes, "I do in fact 'dream.' I may be of artificial origin, but I am in fact an organic entity with only some manufactured components. In my previous assignment, I was granted access to the Avatars online virtual reality experience, acting as a virtual companion to a player. Due to the player's preferences, I was assigned a humanoid form - a grandfatherly figure. I believe that my demeanor may have been patterned after a relative, but I am not sure."
Tracy pushes through the kitchen doors with her bundle of laundry, and heads towards the washer-dryer 'contraption' near the storage lockers, turning her head slightly as she hears that last bit of information from Cadena.
Inari frowns thoughtfully, but whatever she was looking for, she didn't find it in his collar, which appears to be a standard K-9 'Storm' Collar. "So you can go into VR... and you appear as a human? Or a humanoid dog?" she asks.
"I wonder if Inari ever plays in VR," Tracy thinks as she feeds things into the maw of Jason's home-built washing machine, but isn't about to ask Inari herself. At least not yet.
"That is a matter of ..." Cadena breaks off, and looks confused. "That is a matter I wish to consult Mr. Edwards about. During a recent foray into the VR environment known as the Gloaming, I appeared in a form that should not have been.... There was no reason for it to be there. Neural induction technology is not capable of extracting memories from my prior experiences. While a failure of recollection could account for my perception of entities that should not have been canon to the Gloaming universe, there were witnesses to my appearance as 'Brother Cadena' within the Gloaming."
"I did not seem to be behaving very grandfatherly," Cadena notes, musing. "Perhaps that was a matter of perspective. Perhaps I should have termed it 'fatherly.' Or 'brotherly.' Or 'kindly, crazy uncle.'"
"Really," Inari says thoughtfully. "When I've tried popping into Avatars... A terrible idea, Holly would have conniptions. But anyway, I had just the same form." She glances over to Tracy. "Did you know you're popular in Avatars? Everyone wants to ride with Lady Tracer of House Trudeau."
Cadena freezes, stock still, as if he's been caught in something.
"Are you sure they said with?" Jason asks as he comes out of his bedroom dressed in faded jeans and a new shirt. He's currently got a towel wrapped around his head which he's rubbing furiously to try and dry out his hair.
The golden vixen glances back at the frozen dog. "Uh oh, brain rebooting? Oh, you!" She tosses a donut hole at Jason.
"That's not me, Inari," Tracy grumbles as she slams the door to the washer closed. "I don't play Avatars anymore because if that. I can't compete with the game version of myself."
Jason narrowly catches the donut hole in time, then eats it. "Why do you feel the need to compete with yourself?" he asks Tracy. "Consider her a twin and just move on."
Cadena lets out the breath he was holding, and turns around, ducking a bow to Tracy.
"She doesn't have your sense of humor either," Inari says wrinkling her nose. "It's all doom and tragedy, Vampire Queen Sasha and the Darkness must be defeated. Some players really seem to enjoy tagging along on her runs, but you ask me, she's overcompensating or something." She lifts an eyebrow to Jason, giving him a meaningful look as he comments on 'twins'.
"Because she's.. me.." Tracy says, and just throws her arms up. Then she heads for her workstation, careful of her step in case there's some spent bullet casing waiting to bite her bare feet. She pauses next to Jason and says, "This is my favorite bathrobe." She's wearing a crane-print neo-kimono, which goes from her knees to her elbows. "So don't pour water on it, please."
"A virtual entity patterned after Master Tracy?" Cadena asks, perhaps deliberately avoiding the term "Mistress" this time, if not the title usage entirely. "I should like to make her acquaintance some day. With Tracy's permission, of course."
"She's me when I was fourteen years old, Cadena," Tracy notes. "She hasn't changed."
"She isn't you. No more so than a bio-clone of me is me. It's a replica if your body, not your mind. It controls its own destiny, as do you control yours," Jason points out as he drapes his towel around his neck. "And why would I pour water on it?"
Akiko raises an eyebrow. "Does Jason do that often?" In the distance, bathroom noises sound, and then Randall limps back on camera. "Breakfast, Akiko?" he asks.
"Only once, when she asked me to do it with her silly challenge game!" Jason shouts, hoping Akiko hears it.
"That's what you did to get me out of the last robe, remember?" Tracy says teasingly.. although maybe just because Inari is there, and Tracy is competitive.
"You can borrow it if you visit again, Akiko," Tracy offers. "If you let me try on your date dress. I've got it hanging up."
Inari looks at Jason. "Oh really!"
"Should I explain the rules to Inari?" Tracy asks Jason. "I bet she'd get a real kick out of it.." She smiles like a cat.
"She was being obnoxious, so I stuck the sink sprayer down the back of her neck," Jason explains as he sits on the edge of one of his work tables. "She needed to 'cool off', so to speak!"
Akiko laughs. "All right, you can try it on." She waves goodbye to Jason and Tracy and Inari, and then signs off.
Cadena frowns. "Your point is taken, Tracy, and I hope I have offered no offense. My reflexive inclination was to chalk up my interest to a need to fulfill the obligations of my secondary 'quest' directives, but I must remind myself that this particular directive was confined to the scope of the Gloaming, and an entity existing only in the Avatars universe would, by definition, be no more relevant to my task than if I were to try to seek out a Black Cadena for further insights."
Inari smirks. She rubs Cadena's ear and then gets up so that Jason can take the chair back, heading off to get her own shower.
And Inari gets swatted when Jason passes by her towards his chair. "Right, so what's all this introspective talk about identities and virtual reality?" he asks.
paf Inari's tail foomphs into Jason's face, 'by accident', curling around him and then drifting off in a swish of fluffiness.
Cadena looks a bit lost, glancing around and seeing that with Inari gone and Akiko signed off, that would only leave himself or Tracy to explain.
"Ack! Hair!" Jason complains as he flops into his chair, then promptly ptooies out some fluff.
"I'm afraid I was going off on a completely irrelevant tangent," Cadena explains, "upon hearing of a virtual entity patterned after Tracy at a younger age. I suppose I was simply curious to learn more about my master, in a manner of speaking, so that I might be get more context to serve her better."
RIU re-curls around Jason's shoulders looking possessive!
Tracy starts sits at the workstation and slots a few v-chips in, before looking over Cadena's VR goggles. "Something freaky happened to Cadena when he entered the Gloaming VR - I didn't know he'd been in the Avatars game before. Instead of getting the standard new character introduction, he instead met some characters claiming to be the White and Black, including this fox guy.."
"Oh." Cadena blinks, and shakes his head. "Failure of prioritization. Yes. That is far more relevant."
"If you want to learn about that version of Tracy, I can point you to a bunch of online 'vampire' romance 'novels' you can read," Jason offers as a quick way to solve the Tracy dilemma. The other topic, though, earns an arch of his brow. "That sounds a lot stranger," he admits, "Though it can also be easily answered by a mundane explanation. Cadena's brain waves do not match a human and therefore was classified as an NPC instead of a player and was presented a 'start' accordingly."
"You serve me just fine as a guardian Cadena," Tracy notes. "You don't have to research me.. just learn from observation, like regular people do. And you don't have to prepare meals for me! You aren't a ... service robot."
Offering the goggles to Jason to look over, Tracy says, "I want to test that the same thing doesn't happen to him in a non-game environment. And the Gloaming wouldn't have the White and the Black ADs like Avatars does!"
Cadena looks uncertain. "Why would NPCs interact with a virtual world through external channels reserved for players? Wouldn't that be a waste of ... what is the term ... bandwidth?"
"Gloaming NPCs are puppets, nothing like the Avatars ones that act like they have actual lives and stuff," Tracy points out, as she gets her own induction headgear on.
"I should also note," Cadena says, "that I am not the only non-human 'player' on these systems. I am required to identify myself as an artificial intelligence if so inquired within such environments."
"Depends on how they organized the game. What would make a more realistic NPC than someone who evolved in the game similar to how a player does?" Jason asks as he turns the goggles over in his hands. "And another test would be for me to 'log in' via my handy headchip and see if it registers me any differently too, since I won't register as a VR control player either.
Tracy hmms. "Well, your choice then Cadena: we can have Jason monitor you as you sign into the Gloaming, or into a local sandbox world that isn't a game."
"Well," Cadena says, "I apologize for anything that indicates that I doubt your expertise on this subject. I can only say that during my previous assignment, I was, to my knowledge, logged into the system and treated as a non-human player, distinctly separate from in-game NPC entities. It is my hope that there may be some residual information that may be on my neural headset that could be recovered before it is overwritten by a subsequent session."
Jason grabs a pile of wires from a drawer on his desk and starts clipping them onto various points on the goggles. "The real system is likely to trigger a reaction moreso than a virtual sandbox," he suggests. "I don't have any AD systems here, after all."
"And I'm just saying before you look for some conspiracy-laced answer, consider the more mundane ones first. It'll save you from ulcers," Jason adds.
"Oh.. will you be able to monitor my stream then as well, so you have an actual baseline for comparison?" Tracy asks.
"If some portion of my experience can be verified electronically," Cadena suggests, "we might be able to discover if in fact there is a WHITE that exists within the Gloaming reality, and whether or not Renard was a real entity, or just some manifestation invented by my psyche. That won't answer all the questions, but it could, for instance, let me know whether there's any point in tracking down this Renard - and perhaps even offer some clue on how to contact him. 'Werefoxes named Renard' does not result in a very limited subset within the Gloaming setting, I am given to understand ... and I'm not even certain how to spell it."
"After ... after ..." Cadena looks lost, and then shakes his head, snapping out of it. "After speaking with Inari, I believe I have remembered something that was ... lost before. I misunderstood my appearance in the Gloaming. I believe my appearance in the Gloaming was based on my virtual appearance within the Avatars virtual world during my previous assignment. I did not completely recognize it because ... well...." Cadena looks a bit sheepish.
"In my previous assignment," Cadena explains, "I was run through a more 'child-friendly' interface. The visuals were, as some say, 'chibi' representations of the Avatars virtual reality."
"As for remnant data signals, those are tricky to pick up. You basically have to indirectly look for them by how they alter at a micro-gauss level the electrical field around the circuits as the contents discharge. Most direct tapping would just immediately ground it out and blank any residual data. Of course there is also the complication of locating the start and end of a data stream and figuring out the encoding. Or if it's just random noise."
Jason explains while he fiddles. He's got out a magnifying glass now.
The white dog nods, trying to follow all that, and the rest of the technical explanations that follow. By his expression, it doesn't look as if he has retained enough to answer a pop quiz afterward, despite his attempt to stop chattering and be attentive for a change.
"And ahah, that's ... well, I can explain all your issues very simply, Cadena," Jason says after looking through page after page of hex data that spews over his desk screens. "You have two heads."
Shower noises come from the other room.
"Your headset might have a record of the previous Avatar then, and it was transmitted to the game," Tracy notes. "I know my basic model is."
After a long pause, Cadena says, "Two heads? I do not understand your use of the term."
"So.. he isn't fixed you mean, or...?" Tracy asks.
"When you logged in, your mental signature doubles, sort of," Jason explains in a distracted-sounding voice as he continues to skim over data. "You register as both a player, an an AI, sort of NPC. Your brain gets the primary player feeds, which is what you see, and a subconscious-level feed from the AI data line. I can see both fragments in your data feed. So basically, your brain is somehow mixing the two together without you really being fully aware of it. Which ... well, likely leads to a really 'trippy' view of the world. The closest reference point I would have for comparison would be Akiko and Inari when they were fused. Two streams weaving in and out with each other. I do have to warn you; that isn't good for maintaining sanity."
"But if you blocked the AI feed, would it let him interact as a player, or make it not work at all?" Tracy asks.
"I haven't the foggiest idea," Jason admits.
Cadena says, "I regret that I can neither confirm nor deny any particulars about the structuring of my neural network on a functional level, as I was not provided with such details in the course of my conditioning." He pauses, then says, "I am unfamiliar with this concept of a distinct AI data line. If anything, if I were to accept the possibility of 'two heads,' as you say ... I feel oddly surprised there are only two." He pauses again. "But then, as I said, I do not understand the functioning of my own neural network, and cannot hope to contribute intelligently to your theory."
"Well, if we connect to a sandbox, that line will be inactive," Tracy points out.
Cadena says, "I suppose if there is some way in which the environment could extract from my memory - or my headset - some sort of an avatar pattern, that would be discovered as well?"
"You assume my theory is intelligent," Jason notes, "The main thing is the system isn't quite sure how to handle you, so you get two distinct feeds. I'm not sure if you can operate with only one effectively, or if you would have blackout issues. Your brain is different, so requires different input." He shrugs and unhooks the control lines. "I'm intrigued enough to want to log into Gloaming at least once just to see what happens."
"And if you want, I can rid your headset to record everything you see or hear through sensory feeds," Jason offers.
"Most systems recognize embedded Avatars in the interface hardware, so if your pattern is recorded in your headset or in your neural network somehow it should show up in any VR environment," Tracy notes.
Cadena's eyes wander, as if he's lost in thought, and then he snaps back to the present. "I wonder if there is any way to find out whether other entities with similar profiles to myself - in other words, other experimental entities in my line, or perhaps patterned after the same technology - have made access to the Gloaming, and caused similar disruptions in recent history."
"That information would require access to the login server logs," Jason notes.
The white dog looks to Tracy. "Players go through a character creation cycle when signing onto dedicated roleplay-based virtual environments such as the Gloaming or Avatars. If someone's personal default avatar were to look like, let us say, a trademarked or copyrighted character, perhaps available via subscription licensing for social networks or sandbox use only, the Gloaming or Avatars would not automatically create a personal adventuring character using that as a template. Copyright and trademark issues and play balance issues would cause enough trouble alone."
"A quicker route of information would be to just call Avatar's and ask them. I can feed them the data I extracted and they could see if they can make sense of it. They know how they wired your noggin, I don't," Jason suggests.
"That is a very good point. In any case ... is there any way we could make certain any residual data can be mined from the headset before we overwrite it through a new session?" Cadena asks. "I am concerned that I may not get another chance to be able to speak with Renard or 'The WHITE' anytime soon, or under safe circumstances. I cannot, after all, simply send an e-mail at this point."
"It's not that detailed of a template," Tracy explains. "Basically it's something of a 'muscle map' that's built up during the calibration phase of your equipment. A basic body-image, sort of, that your brain can work with. I used the scan data from Jason's machine to enhance mine, so I always start with my own real body and modify from there," Tracy notes.
"And another minor thing of note, there is heavy encryption in the AI stream, which does make it stand out," Jason remarks, apparently still skimming the logs. "No idea if it can be broken through standard attacks."
"But Cadena's brain can decrypt it, obviously," Tracy notes. "So.. take a feed from that instead?"
The shower clicks off, and then the hair dryer starts running.
"I don't think he would appreciate me drilling a hole through his skull to take into neurons," Jason says. "And I don't have a less painful way, say a neural scanner, here."
"Chaz has one, according to Mom!" Tracy says. "Maybe I can get him to bring it over?"
"I would be perfectly willing to submit to the 'less painful way,'" Cadena volunteers.
"We would be better off going there," Jason remarks. "I doubt they would let that leave the lab."
"What about Inari?" Tracy asks, now that the showering sounds have stopped. "And I have to wait for my clothes to dry.. I can' go out just wearing a kimono."
"What about Inari? Avatar's knows about her and I'm sure we could land in a private garage," Jason points out. "We still have the 'borrowed' cars."
Tracy's lips do their 'she's thinking' purse-and-slide-from-side-to-side thing. "The techs will all fawn over her," she finally mutters.
"And the problem is?" Jason asks.
Cadena looks scandalized. "I would not wish to inconvenience Inari, or even to put her at risk, on account of my uncertainties! She is, after all, h--" He stops, uncertain. "She's a real entity."
Jason reaches over and tries to pinch Cadena's ear.
The news program returns to the entertainment top news. "It's now the tenth hour of Inari's disappearance, and no leads have yet turned up as her fans scour the world for her," Miss North Bend Morning News says with a concerned look. "We're going live to the interview with Mr. Fairchild, her most recent boyfriend." The Hollywood actor starts to tell the reporter just how heartbroken he is that she's disappeared, and that he thought they had a real rapport going.
Cadena does not move away, though he winces at the pinching.
Tracy reaches over and pokes Cadena in the side. "You're pretty real too," she notes. "And we need to find out what's going on in VR with you: if the Avatars ADs are really able to interact with the Gloaming virtual world."
"There, you felt pain, you're real. Quit degrading yourself," Jason remarks, satisfied.
Inari steps back into the workshop dressed in a skintight black jumpsuit, looking much more refreshed. The fox musk is noticably reduced as well, though Cadena knowing to look for it, could track her easily. She makes a show of looking for something nondestructive to fling at the screen, then throws her hands up in disgust. "That man's a blithering idiot," she tells Jason.
Jason then can't help himself and makes a rather rude gesture to the projection of Inari's most recent boytoy. "You just said what I was thinking," he tells Inari. "They're going to get more annoying over the next few days I expect, too."
"I am an artificial entity," Cadena says. "While my status entitles me to certain legal protections afforded to me, as I am a physical, biological entity, there are nonetheless distinct legal differences between my status and that of human beings and ... genetically-modified entities derived from human origins. It is not my intent to degrade myself. I simply recognize a priority factor that Inari's existence is distinctly more valuable than my own. I wish for no harm or inconvenience to come to her on my account. That is all, and I apologize if this suggests any fatalism on my part. After all, I also recognize that I am very expensive property of Avatars LLC, and I also place a certain value in all artificially intelligent entities as well."
"Harm? Why, are we going somewhere dangerous? When do we leave?" Inari asks briskly.
"I can sympathize," Tracy tells Inari.
The golden vixen rolls her eyes to Tracy. "I should be thanksful that he didn't come after me with a gun and grenades, I suppose!"
"Not everyone can be as popular as I am, Inari," Tracy says apologetically.
"If you keep that up I will club you with a pillow, Cadena," Jason remarks dryly. "As for where, the great white dog wants his head scanned, so we would need to head to Avatar's headquarters and make use of their scanner gear."
Inari laughs. "Oh, I haven't been there in ages. Since... You know!"
"And I have to ask ... how much would the media devour me if they learned about me?" Jason asks Inari. "Since I'm not a paid-for-actor ... would they risk even trying to interview me?"
"Seriously? Be prepared for 'Why did you break Inari's heart in the first place' and 'How long have you been hiding your secret romance with her' type questions," Inari advises Jason, then gives him a nose lick. "If it isn't juicy gossip, they'll make it into juicy gossip."
"And telling them to go sit on a spike and spin won't work for an answer?" Jason asks.
"I'll call Chaz," Tracy offers, "and get things set up." She stands heads back to the holophone, probably to give Jason and Inari a little privacy.. or just to avoid listening to them.
The golden vixen says, "Breaking news! Inari to wed sociopathic axe murderer," to Jason.
Jason laughs. "Wow, if they announced that, it might be the first accurate description ever used of me!" he declares. "Come on, lets get going before this conversation gets any sillier."
Tracy lets out a bark of laughter at the notion of Jason getting married, as she sits down and dials up Chaz. Then she composes herself, to make sure she doesn't try to flirt with the tech out of low self-esteem.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-03-20-visiting-avatars.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069, 11:00 AM Eastern
As it turns out, there's no need to take one of the borrowed cars to Avatars LLC and risk Inari being seen - when Tracy calls Chaz and mentions the issue, he smiles in an avuncular fashion and tells her that he'll send around one of the VIP limos - the ones with bulletproof and more importantly mirrored windows. George and his partner salutes as they depart. "Don't worry, Mr. Edwards, we'll hold the fort."
The plushly upholstered Icarus Cloud 9 sky-limo whisks them smoothly away under the control of a robot autopilot, and toward one of the many heliports on the surface of the sprawling Avatars LLC corporate research facility. There's no checkpoint, but Jason doesn't need Tracy to tell him that the limo's interior is thoroughly equipped with scanners and transponders. He can feel the electronic chatter right over his head. RIU perches on his shoulders and tilts its head as if listening as well.
VIP Limo 53 passing through checkpoint C-2. On final approach to Vanaheim rooftop. ETA, 30 seconds.
Ganglot confirms passenger manifest. Scan shows vibrosword, powered down and retracted, taser and cutting blade, stored, police sidearm, holstered. Please advise passengers of weapons policy. Escort robot en route.
The limo's robot autopilot speaks up. "We at Avatars LLC are glad to welcome you to our facilities! However, for your own safety, we must ask you to check your weapons. Besides the obvious risk of property damage, injury, and loss of life from weapon discharge, we carry out many experiments which involve highly sensitive electromagnetic fields, which may result in potential weapon malfunction. An escort robot will meet you on the rooftop. You may deposit your weapons in its internal shielded lockers, and it will accompany you throughout your visit so that at any time you wish to depart, you may retrieve your weapons."
As the limo completes its briefing, it lands softly on the roof, dust billowing up on both sides. Two humanoid security robots stand guard at the door, but the apparent escort robot is sitting next to the ramp from the helipad - a four-legged robot with a swiveling camera head mounted on a long neck. Its curved blue ladybug-like shell and lack of visible weapons make it look surprisingly harmless.
Inari looks studiously innocent, dressed in a shiny black jumpsuit. If it weren't for the transmission he'd just overheard, Jason would have no idea that she's concealing a vibrosword hilt on her person.
Cadena shakes himself out of his stupor. He'd found the interior of the limo perhaps just a little too comfortable, and dozed off on the ride over. He looks up through the holo-screen interface he'd called up to compose an e-message (but dozed off in the middle of), and dismisses it to draft storage with a sweep of his paw. He disembarks from the limo first, so as not to hold up Tracy.
Tracy hands over her taser and knife to the robot without hesitation. She's been through this before, after all. Ever since she cleaned up and put on her fresh jumpsuit though she's been fairly quiet.
"Great, emf. Hopefully it won't screw with my head, either," Jason thinks to himself from where he sits, cross-armed. "You'll have to hand over the sword you're carrying, Inari. They system knows exactly what it is and where," he remarks to the kitsune. "Not that I particularly want to give up any weapons at this point, but ... eh." he adds as he slips out of the car and hands over his sidearm.
The escort robot actually seems to beam at Tracy. Though it has no visible mouth, it cleverly manipulates the shutters that sit atop its two bulbous camera-eyes to look like eyes squinting shut in happiness. Its ladybug shell pops open to reveal a variety of lockers - two large rifle-sized lockers and four glove compartment-sized lockers on each side.
The girl uses one of the smaller glove compartment lockers, using her thumbprint for the key. Once her gear is stowed, she smiles back to the robot.
The kitsune grumps, ears flattening out. "We're trusting our protection to something that looks like it escaped from Mr. Entomology's Fantastic World of Bugs?" She fishes out the hilt of the vibrosword, however, and stows it.
"Hey, it's probably better than trusting our safety to someone like Tracy," Jason quips and stows his gun in one of the smaller compartments.
"Yes, because I screw up everything," Tracy mutters sarcastically.
Cadena shuffles around in the heavier "bomb dog" armor he's field-testing (extra-heavy, without the sleek Avatars styling), sniffing the air, and doing his customary sweep of the surroundings. He takes a few tentative steps toward the awaiting lobby, then turns his head (a bit harder to do with the armor links shelling his neck) to look supportively to Tracy. He trots over her and noses her leg, tail wagging slowly, tongue lolling.
Kneeling, Tracy pets Cadena before heading towards the door.
The escort robot clears its throat. "Allow me to introduce myself, honored visitors! Please call me Ed. I will be your guide for today. For now, I will be taking you to meet Charles Burgundy, our VP in charge of Information Technology. He's currently in the main computer room." Its shell closes up again as it trots toward the lobby, where the doors open silently before them.
Cadena quickly follows after Tracy, still looking back and forth. Security robot or not, he doesn't act terribly secure out here in the open.
"You really need a sense of humor," Jason remarks to the teenager. "And a pleasure to meet you, Ed," he adds to the robot, then follows after it.
The limo's autopilot chimes in, "Thank you for flying with me today! Just let us know when you're ready to depart and I'll be back before you know it."
The lobby of the Avatars LLC research building looks like any other office lobby of a multi-billion dollar company that they've ever been in - random fine art pieces that match the blue and gold decor, a marbled tile floor, even a smiling human receptionist who greets them by name and issues them badges. Rebecca (or so her nametag says) advises them that their meals will be comped if they want to eat at one of the Avatars LLC world-famous cafeterias, and that they can also request food be delivered, should they be too busy to go down to one. "You also have access to all facilities, excepting certain ones restricted for government and military security. Please enjoy your visit!"
"Unless I decide otherwise and visit anyway," Jason thinks as he just smiles and takes the badge. "I wish they wouldn't use every moment as a chance to hard-sell things. World famous, really?" he remarks to the others as he shakes his head.
"You guys don't want the tour, right?" Tracy asks Jason and Inari. "I know the way to the research lab."
Inari clips the badge to the collar flap of her jumpsuit. "I've only seen the place briefly, and ah, not while it was at its best." She gives Jason a sidelong look.
Jason slaps his badge on, literally. "I don't know, a tour might prove useful. It'll give me a chance to see if anything seems suspicious, like, oh, people trying to transmit things to your friend Sasha, or the like. Nothing quite like a perimeter scan, you could say. It also gives us an idea what is at hand should something bad happens ... which given our track record is likely," he notes.
Cadena, looking visibly more relieved upon making it into Avatars LLC property, remarks, "The cafeterias are indeed world-famous thanks to the widespread nature of the Avatars game. This is one of the few places where you can hope to find specialists in 'genuine Tasavaltian cuisine' - or, that is, the closest you can hope to get to it in the real world."
Tracy frowns, and asks, "You don't have much confidence in my mom's ability to do her job, do you?" Then she adds, "Which reminds me.. we should check on Mike and Mark and ask them if they've seen Jason Zero."
Moving holograms on the wall advertise the various shards that make up the Diadem, as if they were travel posters, describing the wonders of exotic places like the Church of Tasavalta, the hanging gardens of Asphodel, and Shipwreck, a city made of abandoned ships at the center of the sargasso.
"Having a healthy sense of skepticism keeps you alive, Tracy. No one sees the same problem in the same way," Jason points out.
Ed tilts its head as if listening. "Vice President Charles Burgundy assures me that you are not needed in the laboratory immediately," the bug-bot says cheerily. "Are you interested in touring the greater Avatars LLC research facility, or might you prefer to restrict your tour to Vanaheim itself?"
"Okay, then, let's do your bug-sweep," Tracy concedes, a bit too easily. Maybe she's starting to get paranoid too. "I'll let Chaz know we'll be wandering around like tourists for a bit."
"Thank you. I promise to not hack the posters and make them follow you, playing the hamster dance," Jason tells Tracy. "How long will the larger tour take?" he asks the bot.
The secretary resumes checking her email on the computer, looking bored.
"Might I inquire," Cadena inquires, somewhat nervously, with a head-ducking bow, "whether any other members of my line might be visiting the facilities today, perhaps in for a checkup? I haven't exactly made any effort to keep in touch."
"Approximately four hours! There's so much to see and do here in Avatars LLC's offices, even omitting research that would require you to sign an NDA," the robot says, 'smiling'.
"Wow, I hadn't realized there were other White Cadenas.." Tracy notes, blinking at her Cadena.
"Hm. Four hours is a rather long time. what would the Vanheim tour take?" Jason asks. "We could always take the other part of the tour after we conclude our business here."
Ed consults via radio, then advises Cadena, "No other experimental Avatar companions are presently in the office. However, should you wish to consult with one, I will make inquiries."
"Approximately 90 minutes," Ed replies to Jason. "120 minutes if you wish to have lunch in our ground floor cafeteria."
RIU rests its chin on Jason's head, trying to see over the secretary's shoulder what she's reading.
Jason pats the dragon on his shoulder. "We have two real Avatars along the way; they make of for a dozen experimental companions," he claims. "And why don't we stick to the shorter tour and grab lunch. Once we get working, who knows how long it will take."
"The cafeteria is pretty good," Tracy notes. "There's a little lounge off of it too, and the couches are comfy for napping. I slept there a lot when I was little and my parents were working late."
Cadena nods, then turns to the robot, ducking his head. "Thank you for checking for me. I have no requests at this time."
Ed beeps happily. "Well then, let's get started! We'll start from the bottom and work up, so the first thing we should visit is the elevator..." Vanaheim appears to be a cylinder in basic layout, wrapped around an interior shaft with reflectors that bounce sunlight down to the lower levels effectively doubling the number of 'window offices'. As for the 'bottom', that turns out not to be ground level after all, but the physical facilities that provide needed services like air conditioning and heating, and cooling for the massive quantum cores. Eerily blue-glowing lines that remind Jason of the Ozymandias run coolant between the cores themselves and the waste dissipation facility. "In the winter, we can spread the heat across the many office buildings here, reducing our heating bills and keeping us green. In the summer, we run cold water from the bay through these lines. Completely EPA approved!"
"I'm pretty sure they filter the seawater first," Tracy whispers to Inari. "Don't want it catching fire or something.."
Maintenance workers in blue jumpsuits and orange hard-hats nod to the visitors as they rush hither and thither. "We've got a temperature spike in sector C!" yelps one. "Boost coolant flow by 20%!"
"Do you add anything to the bay water to adjust its coefficient of heat?" Jason asks, "And filter it out afterward?" The outburst, though, makes him blink. "Why is there a temperature spike of 20 degrees? That seems ... odd. Most things tend to run in a steady-state."
"Who knows how the Cores really work?" Tracy notes with a shrug. "All sorts of weird physics things happen in them. Maybe one needed the power to create a virtual supercomputer."
The maintenance worker nearest Jason, a red-haired woman, stops to answer his question. "It's filtered before it goes in, sir. While we're adding to global warming, we're reducing ocean pollution. Management of ocean temperature's a different agency."
Nudging Jason, Tracy asks the technician, "Is there a record of when spikes have occurred in the past?"
"Ah, of course. Passing on the problem to someone else. Good corporate ethics at work," Jason agrees with a sage nod.
Something then seems to occur to Jason and his brow furrows. He eyes the red-haired woman curiously.
"It makes more sense to manage ocean temperature from a central agency," the maintenance technician argues. "As for the spikes... Well, it's been happening a while, for years, really. Every now and then, the Q-Cores start thinking really hard. Within operating parameters, but it plays hob with our thermic budgets."
Tracy whispers to Jason, "Portals?"
The supervisor nearby adds, "If it weren't a breach of our contract, I'd love to rip one open and find out what makes it tick, but Dantech has a pretty hardcore contract against reverse engineering. Every time they come by to service the machines, we've got to clear everyone out so we won't see anything we're not meant to."
"Of course I assume you've considered the fact that since they're also running the rival game ... surely they wouldn't try to sabotage your systems, plant spy routines, or piggyback off your systems, effectively having you pay for their server costs," Jason remarks rather dryly.
Cadena keeps close to Tracy, and tries very hard not to be in the way of anyone.
The red-haired woman - Cathy, from her nametag - shrugs. "Not my concern, I just keep the heat rolling. Sir."
"Like how it's your sister's job to man the reception desk?" Jason asks the red-head.
The blue security "bug" says politely, "Hel does a complete audit of our systems after every maintenance checkup. To date, we have found absolutely no evidence of any tampering whatsoever. Are you ready to move on? Our next stop will be the Q-Cores themselves, and I'm sure you won't want to skip that!"
Cathy frowns at Jason. "Sister? Sorry, sir, gotta get back to work!" She resumes manipulating the heat flow diagram in the air before her.
The supervisor looks relieved. "Ah, the spike's going down. Okay, throttle it back, recharge the reserves when it's back to normal."
"Of course you do, Cathy," Jason remarks. To Tracy, he notes quietly, "You may not have noticed, but Cathy the tech is identical to Rebecca the receptionist. And I do mean identical. Something fishy is going on and it's not just my keen sense of fish." Louder, to the security bot, "Ah, right, lets move on. I'm sure Hel is infallible, just like he was four years ago when the universe almost imploded."
"Red hair is popular this year, so I didn't notice.." Tracy replies quietly.
Ed tilts its camera-head at Jason. "I have no data on that, sir. However, yes, I am programmed to affirm that Hel is in fact, infallible, within reason!"
"I know Hel and know he isn't. Never get complacent. You always double check, then triple-check the double-check, and even that won't be enough," Jason remarks, "Now, lets go see the ticking bombs of reality collapse. I mean, the cores."
Cadena's ear twitches, but he keeps trotting along.
As Ed conducts them up to the next floor, the one that houses the Q-Cores themselves, it adds a series of disclaimers that clarify that 'within reason' means 'given access to correct and complete information', a thorough understanding of human nature which is in fact difficulty if not impossible for an AD to achieve, and of course, barring unforeseen accidents and catastrophes which could not be predicted by current weather and climatology science. They take the stairs up - well, stairs for the humans, a ramp for the security robot. Wheelchair-friendly!
"Hel's technically female, according to mythology," Tracy notes to Jason. "And whatever you do, do not stand between the blue-green lights in the Core room."
"Female, eh? Even more fallable," Jason jokes ... and makes sure there are a few steps between him, Tracy, and Inari, for that comment.
The Q-Cores housing is a big round football-sized room with offices and maintenance supply rooms ringing the area. The Q-Cores themselves are giant slabs of black material, completely featureless except for the Dantech logo stamped at the upper right corner of each. They are anchored within polished steel clamps from which blue pipes run to the physical facilities department just underneath, and lined up row by row in a grid layout. The maintenance workers here wear white and blue jumpsuits, with hoods pulled up to prevent hair from falling out into the delicate workings.
Inari gives Jason a look that promises revenge later.
RIU perks up and looks at the Q-Cores with interest. Shiny things!
Jason smiles sweetly to Inari. "So, how many people in here have red hair, do you think?" he asks the others, changing the topic. "And I should have asked for one of these as a reward for the events years past. Oh well."
Whatever dark thoughts Tracy may have towards Jason are well hidden, and her attention is taken up by the slabs. She eyes them with a good bit of apprehension.
Cadena leans his head sympathetically against Tracy's side at one of the brief vista stopping points.
Reflexively, Tracy reaches down to pet Cadena's head.
Ed says, "And here we have one of several of Avatars's network of Q-Cores, bringing you our widely acclaimed massively multiplayer virtual reality game for twenty years. It's common for our visitors to ask which one houses Tasavalta and which one holds the Empire of Stars, but in fact, it would be more accurate to imagine that these Q-Cores represent physical laws like gravity and the conservation of energy and matter, or conditions such as love and hatred, war and peace, which underpin the virtual universe. Just a single Q-Core here has more computing power than the entire Earth did in the year 2020."
The kitsune peers suspiciously around. "Now that you mention it... I think I see Cathy's other sister... Back there." She nods toward the back of the room. "Want me to round her up for a little questioning?"
"They use ghost channels to talk," Tracy mutters, and then shivers. "I hate that term. It makes me think there are souls being caught and sucked into the machines."
RIU flits off Jason's shoulder and zips toward a nearby Q-Core!
"Which one is the replacement White and replacement Black," Jason asks the bot. To Inari Jason nods, "Please do. I would appreciate it." And to Tracy he adds, "Who says they don't? That is what happened to your mother four years ago..."
Ed beeps with alarm. "Sir, please restrain your pet! These Q-Cores are highly delicate instruments of technology."
"Ah, so you admit that my mother has a soul then?" Tracy replies with a smirk. "I'll tell her that."
"So is RIU," Jason points out. "He won't break anything..."
"Of course she does, Tracy. Two, in fact. The quality varies with what shoes she wears day to day..." Jason quips.
"Sir," Cadena says, alarmed, "doesn't RIU have cybernetic components? Mere proximity may result in interference. Foreign devices aren't allowed that close to the Q-Cores."
"When Inari gets back I'm going to ask her to bite you," Tracy tells Jason. "And yeah, the Cores alter space-time or something - solid state stuff goes a bit wonky near them."
"So do I and I haven't had any issues yet," Jason points out. "RIU, come back here, the natives are getting restless," he tells the cybernetic dragon anyway. "But .... if it'll make you feel better, I'll ask him to come back."
The bug looks worried as it trots after RIU. "Sir, we are authorized to employ force to remove unauthorized persons and objects from the vicinity of the Q-Cores." Then as Jason speaks, it breathes a sigh of relief - and how it does that is a marvel of robotic emotive behavior engineering, considering it has no breath.
RIU hovers in the air barely ten feet away from a Q-Core. It turns and makes a wheedling noise at its master. But, but... Interesting object!
In the meantime, Inari seems to have disappeared.
"Shoulder, or things might get ugly," Jason insists, then pats his shoulder. "Remind me to have the staff here program you with the ability to break rules," Jason notes to Cadena.
Cadena goes tense, pressed close to Tracy. His body shivers slightly.
RIU sulks as it flies back considerably more slowly.
"And RIU, can you detect Inari?" Jason asks the dragon.
"No tinkering with my dog," Tracy growls. "We're here to find out if other stuff was programmed into him, remember?"
"You two really need a sense of humor," Jason remarks dryly.
Ed beams again. "Thank you, sir! These Q-Cores represent a cornerstone of Avatars LLC's multi-trillion dollar business. Without them, we would be sunk! We thank you for exercising patience and understanding. Now, resuming our tour, on the next three floors, we have the virtual reality labs. In fact, Vice President Charles Burgundy is working in one at the moment." It appears that there's a secondary elevator shaft that serves the research floors, and a winding stairwell around them.
Still no Inari. RIU, now re-perched around Jason's shoulders, looks around but doesn't see any signs of her, or the redhaired woman she was chasing.
Cadena's body posture immediately shifts, and his ears perk up. "Will we be able to meet Vice President Burgundy?"
"We aren't leaving until Inari comes back," Jason says and starts looking about for her, himself.
Ed pauses as if consulting some registers. "Oh! Yes. We are missing a tour member. Scan in progress."
"Chaz is expecting us, remember?" Tracy tells Jason.
"We aren't leaving until Inari returns," Jason repeats.
The 'tour members' see Inari in the shadow of one of the complicated-looking lab machines, with a squirming woman also in shadow. Her outline looks curiously hazy. Meanwhile, Ed says, "Ah! I have her badge on tracking. Right this way, sir." The bug heads off in the opposite direction.
So of course Jason goes in the other direction, towards the shadowy image of Inari.
Uncertain, Tracy goes with Ed, to keep it from noticing that nobody is following.
Cadena holds back, looking uncertainly between the departing security robot and the other scene.
The kitsune appears to have an arm hold on a wide-eyed red-haired computer technician who looks rather like Cathy and Rebecca. Her nametag says Monica. As Jason comes up, Inari grins toothily and releases her hand from the technician's mouth. "Okay, now you can talk, but don't scream. Who are you and who do you work for?"
In the distance, Ed is seeking out Inari, with Tracy in tow.
Cadena looks alarmed. "Tracy! This is an emergency! Please detach my K-9 Storm Collar and my headset!"
Tracy stops in her tracks and turns around. "Okay, can you tell me why you need those removed?" she asks as she starts working on the collar.
"Mmf-- I'm Monica! Monica Schwartz! I work for Avatars!" the red-haired woman says. "Who are you and why are you manhandling me?!"
"Was it really necessary to get rough?" Jason asks on a low voice. To the woman, Monica, he says bluntly, "Look, there are two others that look exactly like you. That is, from a probability point of view, practically impossible. So drop the pretense and explain yourself."
"Proximity to Q-Cores!" Cadena barks, as he uses his polydactyl paw to rip the headset out of his ear.
"You aren't that close," Tracy says, and holds on to Cadena's armor. "You want to run over to Inari and Jason; is that it?"
"Avatars LLC personnel in danger! Conflicting priorities!" Cadena barks. "Must assist!"
"No! Sit!" Tracy says, and tries to pull Cadena's head around to look at her. "She's not in danger, they're just asking her some questions."
Cadena reflexively sits as commanded, but twitches repeatedly, biting down hard on his lower lip.
'Monica' squirms in Inari's hand, but gives in, seeing the look of certainty in Jason's eye. "I don't know what you mean about people who look like me, but maybe they came from Tesliem like I did. All I know is, the Emperor's man told me that I was needed to serve out here..." She looks in tears. "Are you here to kill me?"
"You have to trust Jason's instincts.. and triplets that aren't aware of one another are unlikely," Tracy notes. "Of course, sending a bunch of clones without altering their looks at all is pretty unlikely too, but they'll sort it out, I'm sure."
Inari's grip tightens at the word Emperor. Monica squeaks.
"No. But we need to know what is going on. I've been to Tesliem. Four years ago. Pirate ship Osymandias. You may have heard of it. Anyway, will you please come with us and explain what you know? Something bad is happening, that much is certain. If you cooperate, nothing will happen to you," Jason says. The last part may be more directed at Inari than Monica.
Cadena continues to sit, looking up intently at Tracy, ear flicking repeatedly.
"Four years ago? That was after I-- all right, I'll come quietly. Just..." She whispers. "You aren't here because something bad happened back home, are you?"
"I wouldn't know. Come on," Jason says. "Inari, escort her, please. I think it's time to cut our tour short and find Holly and Chaz."
Ed pauses in front of the ladies' bathroom and looks around for its tour. At this distance, Tracy can just make out its eyebrow-shutters flying up in comic dismay.
"They're moving, let's head to the elevator," Tracy tells Cadena. "Ed will catch up, I'm sure."
Inari loosens her grip and 'encourages' Monica to walk along. As they leave the shadow of the bank of equipment, her haze dissipates as well.
Ed uses a foot-hand to open the ladies' bathroom and sticks its head in. From here, Cadena can faintly make out the bug calling, "Hello? Inari? Where are you?"
Cadena, in deliberate, slow motions, gets back up off his haunches, and stoops down to pick up his hastily-extracted headset in his mouth. He shakily keeps stride with Tracy.
When they approach Tracy and Cadena, Jason says, "Well, it appears Avatar's has been 'hiring' refugees from Tesliem. It appears several of the 'generic female archtype' characters were sent our by the Emperor. They didn't make sure that the ones with identical structure and skinning were placed in separate locations. Anyway, meet Monica, number 3 Tesliem resident. There may be others than the two we already know of."
Tracy finishes reattaching Cadena's headset. "So, I'm guessing the mystery power spikes are portal events, and someone or something has fixed the whole fake-matter issue?" she says.
As they regroup at the elevator to the research floors, Ed comes trotting out of the ladies' bathroom with Inari's badge in one foothand, using the other three legs to move with barely a hitch in its stride. "Ah! There you are," the bug says happily. "You seem to have left this in the bathroom, honored visitor."
Inari bats her eyelashes. "Why, thank you, Ed! You are a true gentlebot." She clips it on with one hand, her other hand holding Monica's wrist.
"Always happy to be of service," Ed declares. "Shall we go up? I've taken the liberty of summoning the elevator."
"It may be an AI deciphered the trick I did years ago and found the same approach to stabilizing it," Jason remarks dryly. "And yes, please. Time to go up."
The elevator doors open with a musical chime. Ding!
Tracy waits to see if any monsters jump out.
As they go up, Ed reels off minutae about the past projects that have been developed here, such as the Ratatosk Miniature Pet Squirrel, now a best-selling product around the world. "And of course we're always working on developing new additions to the worlds of the Diadem! We prototype new shards in these labs, so if you keep your eyes out, you might be able to see hints about what's coming next." Tracy's dream job, or at least it was until all this began.
"Hah, the squirrel! I remember controlling that thing and ... heheh," Jason chuckles at an old memory. "That was a tough little bugger in the end. But alas, poor squirrely, you feel to machine guns."
"The squirrel was creepy, I thought," Tracy notes. "Like real squirrels are."
"Note to self, buy Tracy a squirrel," Jason quips.
In the midst of 'Minute Waltz', the elevator releases them into what looks like a typical research laboratory hallway, antiseptic white plastic paneling, plexiglass windows overlooking scientists gathered around this or that - usually holographic tanks modeling complex structures. "On your left, you'll see the neural immersion lab, where we're working on improvements to the Avatars gameplay experience. Don't worry, you won't need neural headsets like the full medical helmets we employ here - we use these so that we can better analyze changes to brain waves and neural chemistry over time. All improvements are software so they'll be fully compatible with standard consumer headsets."
"We'd like to see Mr. Burgundy now," Tracy interrupts the robot. "I have an appointment with him. Tune up on my White Cadena True Avatars Companion."
"When with the game require full brain implants instead of helmets?" Jason asks, curious.
Ed reacts with good grace to this. "Of course! We can resume your tour anytime you wish, Miss Trudeau. Right this way, then." He leads the way to the side lab where a thickly bearded blonde man on the heavy side is leaning over a holotable to inspect a sea of data, with a small Q-Core nearby. The Q-Core has been plastered with labels that read 'EVIDENCE - DO NOT ERASE' and 'FRAGILE', and at the bottom of one corner is the logo of building blocks with the words 'Programmable Matter Corporation'.
"Avatars LLC remains committed to its customers. As long as the majority of our customers prefer standard consumer-grade helmets, we will continue to support their needs," Ed claims.
"You are such a market-droid," Jason quips to Ed. His attention is elsewhere, though, on the data set the bearded man is examining as well as the be-labeled Q-Core. "That must be the system Holly blamed me for crashing," he mutters.
"Chaz!" Tracy yells, and actually gives the big man a hug from behind. "You'll never guess what we found downstairs!"
Chaz looks up from his work. "Ah, you're here! I was just trying to recover some of the data on this thing," he says to Jason and Tracy. "It's like a needle in a haystack though. Or worse - trying to find the hay in a stack of needles! And Cadena! I gather you wanted a neural checkup?"
Chaz reaches up to pat Tracy on the shoulder affectionately as she hugs. "Um... A unicorn? I always thought we should make some unicorn avatar companions."
Cadena bows, ducking his head and tucking in fore-paw. "Hello, Vice President Burgundy."
"Your corporation has a few problems, Chaz," Jason notes and thumbs towards Monica. "Such as invaders from Tesliem. The receptionist, Cathy in Cooling, and Monica in Q-Core management, are all the same female generic archetype from the game. Claims the 'Emperor' sent them here. And do you want me to take a look at that mess?" He gestures towards the stuff Chaz was looking at earlier.
"We need this one checked too," Tracy says, pointing to the redhead in Inari's care. "She says she's from Tesliem."
"Really!" Chaz raises his eyebrows. He gives Monica a raised eyebrow, turning toward her.
"Bring up their corporate id and do a detail match on their pictures," Jason suggests. "The odds that three identical people work at the same corporation is, well ..."
Monica wilts. "Um... I never meant any harm! And truly, these have been the best years of my life, out here."
"Do you have an Imperial superior or contact you're supposed to report to, either here or in the Diadem?" Tracy asks Monica.
"If they've been here for years, then the General must have set up their identities when he was head of Security here," Tracy says to the others.
"I... It's all done through email," the woman says miserably, looking at her shoes. "But it was never anything that would harm Avatars, I swear! If anything, we were just increasing capacity, adding redundancy to the network. I would never have done anything to hurt you, Chaz!"
Jason rubs his forehead as if he was having a sudden headache. "You had better call your mother, Tracy. This is a security matter, after all," he notes.
Chaz puts one hand over his face. "So, more communication lines? That we don't officially know about?" He shakes his head, then punches the holodesk. "HEL!"
"Lines.. or nodes?" Tracy asks. "I mean, you can't trace entanglement nodes.. Oh, right!" She taps on her wrist-comp to call her mother.
"Is dealing with your fans this bad too?" Jason asks Inari as an aside.
The holotable data fades out to be replaced with a tall Nordic-armored woman with black hair. HEL. "I am here, Vice President," she says in a voice that seems ice crystal-sharp. "Assessing threat now. Implementing immediate response." Behind them, Ed stiffens and they hear the sharp clack of its carapace opening.
Holly's phone rings. And rings.
"I think mom's still taking her nap," Tracy says, as she turns to see what's happening to their security-guide-bot.
Ed looks considerably different when it's popped up two additional arms, one mounted with what looks like a Tesla rifle, the other mounted with a shield that used to be the lid for its storage compartments. "You are under cover," it drones, pointing its rifle at Monica. "Do not attempt hostile actions. Lethal force has been authorized."
"I don't think we're at any risk of her attempting hostile actions," Jason remarks and crosses his arms. He shakes his head and sighs.
"Uh, maybe we could dial the response down a bit?" Tracy suggests nervously, while stepping further away from Monica and Inari.
Monica yelps and puts her arms over her face! "Don't shoot! Don't shoot, I'm not going to do anything!"
Cadena is braced, claws out, wound up and ready to spring, not moving from his spot.
"I can't believe it is me that is saying this but ... Everyone ... calm ... down. We need to understand what is going on and what has been communicated. No one needs to be shot, mauled, or otherwise mutilated," Jason says a bit louder now.
Fishing a photo print from one of her jumpsuit pockets, Tracy shows it to the cowering Monica. "Ever seen this guy, maybe calling himself Brian?" she asks, displaying the picture of the modified Jason Zero.
HEL says, "ED-256 is now required to escort the prisoner for interrogation. In light of this, I am releasing your weapons to you and authorizing you for carry of weapons in the Avatars LLC complex for the duration of your stay here." She adds primly, "As the resident security AD for Avatars LLC, it is my job to be paranoid, Mr. Edwards."
Chaz agrees with Jason, "It's all right... I can take care of escorting Monica myself, Hel. I know her." He looks tired, and maybe heartbroken.
Monica blinks. "That's the Emperor's man," she says to Tracy, startled. "Except, he wasn't dressed like that, he had Seneschal armor."
"Did you see him here in this world, or in the other.. or even in a game world?" Tracy asks next, before Monica can be escorted away.
Inari perks up and takes the immediate opportuntiy to reclaim her vibrosword.
"Game world? He met me on Tesliem," Monica says, gradually putting her hands down and letting Chaz help her back up from where she's fallen into a heap. Ed continues to watch her distrustfully. (that blue ladybug shell isn't quite as effective in making him look harmless anymore)
"Paranoia doesn't involve pulling a mega-gauss weapon on an unarmed woman," Jason points out as he goes to retrieve his gun, "Even I don't go to immediate deadly force." He holsters his gun and sighs. "And I would suggest that you run a complete employee sweep and do a photo-skeletal structure scan on all. If any have over 98% familiarity, you may want to detain for questioning. Such commonality is not natural. And will you give me a moment to talk to Monica?"
Tracy collects her own weapons and adds to Jason's request, "You might want to focus on anyone hired during Irongrip's reign as Security Chief, HEL."
Cadena's claws clack on the floor as he moves out of the way of the vice president and his charge.
HEL nods to Jason, sounding a bit put-off to be told how to do her job. "I have already run the employee sweep for dopplegangers. I am now reviewing background information for the remaining individuals. But my first and foremost priority is to collect data on the sum total of whatever invasive actions may have been performed to compromise our security." Nevertheless, she seems willing to let Jason and Tracy have a few minutes with Monica, though not out of her sight.
"Employees are always the easiest attack vector of any company," Jason adds before approaching Monica. "I want you tel tell all of us what you have been doing, please ... and about the man in the photo. What you know of him and what he has been doing."
Monica explains, though it takes a bit as she breaks into sobs here and there, that she was a secretary in Tesliem, working in the Black Soldier project - making a better soldier through alchemically combining a brain with a powerful golem body. The man they call Brian identified himself to her as "Jason Dragonhand", and told her that she was needed to serve the Empire in a strange world. She was sent into a small, strange-looking room, where she changed into the weirdly fitting clothes they gave her, and then she waited for what seemed like hours while a red light glared down at her. Then the door opened on the other side and two security guards escorted her out to her new life.
"Great. So now I'm the evil right hand of the Emperor, eh?" Jason quips after listening to this and shakes his head. "Do you have any idea where this 'Dragonhand' is now? And I suppose the explanation makes me feel a little better, he didn't figure out my trick. Experience wins over youth once more."
"200 bits per particle," Tracy mutters. "That's what I was told. That's how much data it takes to make something real in our universe. But if Jason Zero was there.. which Tesliem was it? The one currently simulated in the game or the one that was part of the detached reality that separated from the system four years ago?"
"The General was security chief then, and he told me that there wouldn't be any questions asked about my background," Monica continues. "That all I needed to do was to settle in, get used to living here... Wait for orders. The biggest surprise of my life was when I found out that people were talking about our worlds like it was a game. I still don't understand why or how, but it has to be some kind of copy. Like a magic globe, scrying on something far away."
Monica answers Jason, "No, no I don't. He was passing through on the Ozymandias, en route to Cauchemarem, but that was years ago. He could be anywhere by now!"
"So the jerk took my ship? Oh, he's just trying to prove he's better than the original, isn't he?" Jason grumbles and runs his hands through his hair.
"I don't get it, why send secretaries?" Tracy asks, scrunching her lips together. "Why not soldiers? Fill the Security ranks with his own men and do a military takeover?"
"Too obvious, Tracy. Think about who hears all the office gossip, prints e-mails for the bosses, and so on," Jason remarks, "Secretaries. The lower rank and file always hear and know more than the supervisors suspect. They're a great attack vector."
"Who's to say he didn't bring soldiers?" Inari wonders, lips thinning into a snarl. "Maybe that's the deal behind Irongrip Security."
"HEL, are you still listening?" Jason asks.
"Don't hate me, Chaz," Monica whispers. "I wanted to tell you but I never could find the right moment..."
"But... were you ever asked to do anything other than just.. your job, Monica?" Tracy asks.
HEL nods. "I am also conducting multiple interrogations at this moment, Mr. Edwards. Her story corroborates theirs. Tesliem appears to have been misused as a factory of... 'human resources'. Multiple changes to Avatars LLC equipment have been..." Her image blinks a few times.
"And did we just trigger something by outing the plants?" Tracy asks worriedly.
Chaz looks up with alarm. "HEL? You're glitching."
"I wanted to also inform you to watch for an AD under the callsign HECATE. She's being used by the group Face Reality to also cause problems. It may be part of this," Jason notes. His brow arches slightly at the flickering.
"You don't need to be a soldier to employ Shadow magic," Cadena notes, sounding uneven. "I discounted it at the time, since it made no sense in context, but I witnessed obfuscating phenomena near the Q-Core consistent with certain types of Shadow magic, if one were to apply Avatars lore to the real world."
"Could they be generating a field like at the California site?" Tracy asks, looking to Inari. "Where you able to feel yourself recharging down there or anything?"
HEL responds, "Multiple changes to Avatars LLC equipment have been tracked, and their schematics were altered so they would not be flagged in an audit. The Mistletoe protocol can no longer be considered an effective safeguard at this time." She pauses grimly. "Vice President, I must now request permission to station explosive devices at major communication nodes while we detach human maintenance personnel to revert the changes in as orderly a fashion as possible without interrupting service."
Inari blinks. "Yes... It's not strong, but it's there," she says to Tracy. "I could recharge my powers here."
HEL adds, "In addition, I am now grounding all traffic in and out of the facility until our investigation is complex and I am satisfied that there are no more infiltrators in our ranks. I regret the inconvenience this may pose, visitors, but it is essential that all evidence on how our security has been compromised remain on the grounds."
"They opened a bridge to the detached space-time I bet," Tracy says, sounding excited. "Since that one is already real, sort of, then maybe the 'upgrade' trick isn't as.. difficult? And why doesn't mom answer her phone!"
"Then you might want to. I have a bad feeling things will be getting worse soon," Jason remarks, finds himself a chair, and flops into it. His fingers tap on the armrest while he thinks.
"Do you have any further questions for 'Monica Schwartz'?" asks HEL.
"Not at the moment. We should make sure Mike and Mark are still safe," Jason says.
"Oh, Monica.. do you know what you were told to wait for?" Tracy asks.
Monica looks up. "I... don't know? I always get my orders through email. Like I said, it was just small stuff. Like upgrading the power busses."
"Can you tell us the email address it comes from?" the girl asks next.
"HEL, will you allow me to link in and see the changes?" Jason asks.
"It's always a long set of numbers and letters," Monica recalls. "And it's different each time. They just always have the Imperial sigil, so I know they're official orders."
HEL gestures with one hand, and another terminal pops up a schematic view of the Avatars LLC complex, with changes highlighted in red. At the widest zoomed-out scale, tiny red dots seem to be practically everywhere but cluster most thickly around the Q-Core and nearby facilities.
"Huh, so no real proof that the Emperor is issuing them, or if it's all the work of Dragonhand," Tracy says with a sigh, and looks to Cadena. "You look like you want to ask something."
Cadena's ears flush. "Ah ... yes. My apologies, but can you tell me - aside from humans such as yourself who were sent to Earth from the Empire, were there any non-humans? Say ... Avatars?"
Jason leans in and peers at the diagram. His hand flicks in move gestures as he pans around the image, looking for diagrams within the pattern in case it is trying to construct some sort of 'magic' sigil out of the quantum nodes.
Monica furrows her brows in thought. "Avatars? They're creatures of the Light. We wouldn't even have had any in the Empire," she says with certainty. "Maybe they might have sent a Sorceress through, but if so, I never met one."
"They are not all of the Light," Cadena says, staring at Monica.
"Did you meet any woman who went by the name of Sasha Knightley? She's memorable; too much makeup, flirts wih everything, likes to kill people. Has a panther named Moonlight," Jason remarks absently.
"Well, you're the Avatar, you'd know better," Monica says with a shrug.
Monica shakes her head to Jason. The name doesn't ring a bell, evidently.
Cadena shudders, claws flexing and clacking on the floor. "I have no further questions," he says. "I regret the needless detour."
The diagram makes more sense when Jason overlaps it with the communication map - the Mistletoe Protocol severs connections by physically ramming blades through the lines that would connect to the quantum entanglement links. But the additional lines that were added would take advantage of plain fiber-optic bundles, installed in the old days when communication still ran through land lines, and thus keep the quantum cores online. Still, that only accounts for some of the changes. What are the rest? It doesn't make sense immediately to Jason.
Chaz shakes his head. "Thank you, Monica. I guess I'll be seeing you out to HEL's tender care." He looks unhappy about it, but gives Tracy a hug. "Sorry this had to ruin your day visiting us, miss."
"I'm sorry it seems to have ruined something more personal for you Chaz," Tracy says softly.
"They've installed redundant links throughout the complex. There is no way to isolate the cores at this time," Jason tells the others as he continues to examine the diagram. "There are other changes I'm trying to make sense of. "/Kimon, initiate recording of diagram and analyse. Cross reference to all occult/Avatars patterns in the database as well as run world-general searches, please for close matches. 90% accuracy on match./" he tries to send back to his home-system.
"It's all right, you can't build a house on sand." As Chaz says this, Monica breaks into sobs, and he escorts her gently out, with Ed following them. The door slides shut behind them.
"What about the cooling system?" Tracy asks. "That's a critical component."
"Was I too cold? It was obvious that Chaz and that woman were ..." Jason actually asks, then shakes his head. "Never mind. I'll check the cooling system."
The cooling system has indeed been beefed up, which would only make sense if you expected the Q-Cores to generate a lot more heat. Or maybe if you installed more Q-Cores, but there doesn't actually look like room to install them in the current facility. And then there're the increased power conduits... Why add them?
"I hope he doesn't look at her like she's a thing now," Tracy murmurs, and pets Cadena for a bit to help calm herself down.
Cadena's claws finally retract, and he slumps, shivering, as he looks after the departing vice president and his charge. He checks the fit on his K-9 Storm Collar to make sure it's not falling off.
"She's not a thing," Jason notes, "And I hope I won't be proven a liar about no harm coming to her."
"Is ... is there any way to know whether it's really standard procedure for a tour of the facilities to include a visit to the Q-Core room right off from the start?" Cadena asks.
Quietly, Tracy tries contacting her mother again, this time going for office and mobile numbers, even though the office should auto-route that.
"The cooling system has been doubled, so have the power conduits. They have far more capacity than the system should need. Which makes me wonder if there's a sub-basement with more cores," Jason notes. "HEL, what is below those chambers?"
"I dunno, Cadena - we were given the VIP tour, after all," Tracy says.
HEL's voice sounds over the speakers as well as from her avatar manifested here. "All personnel, please be advised that the Avatars LLC complex is now under quarantine. We are restricting all travel in and out until further notice. We regret the inconvenience. Please remain indoors and within your office. Do not leave your buildings without confirming your need with a security robot. If you require food, it can be delivered to your office. All personnel, please be advised..." She repeats.
"Damn the service interruption, the whole thing should be shut down right now," Jason mutters, leans forward, and holds his head in his hands.
"I wonder if your portal-sniffing powers from The Gloaming will work under the influence of the Q-Cores here, Cadena," Tracy says. "It would be good to know where any portals were located in the complex."
The schematics don't show any of the obvious and important physical connections that would be needed for a sub-basement... But nothing beats going and actually looking, of course. Schematics have been altered before.
RIU peers at the holographic display of the Avatars LLC complex... Then sticks its nose right into the display. For a moment, it appears as if a giant RIU had burrowed right through the Vanaheim building they're in. Beep!
Cadena shudders. "I don't know if that is a good idea, Master Tracy, but if you order me to, I will attempt my best. However, I must advise you, due to my threat-assessment training, that my previous concerns regarding manipulation by an AD or other entity still stand. There is an unsettling convergence here, now."
"And didn't you just explain to us how the system can't be shut down?" Tracy notes to Jason, and watches RIU's antics. "That's okay, Cadena. I'm not gonna try to shapeshift either."
Jason sits back and thinks. He checks that his gun is loaded and nods once. "I'm going down, using the stairs," he tells the others. "I'm half the cause of this problem; if they didn't have access to the clone of me, I doubt they would have gotten this far. So, time for me to put a bullet through my own head, figuratively speaking."
Inari frowns, perking her ears up. "It's quiet. I don't hear anyone yelling."
Blake Forrester's Q-Core, if that's who it belonged to, continues to hum quietly. The display next to it shows an endless sea of undifferentiated data. It's an effective blank slate.
"I will note," Cadena tries to explain to Tracy, though sounding uncertain of his own theories, "that out of the number of individuals that Jason detected as being genetic duplicates, we happened to zero in on the one who was personally acquainted with the Vice President. Furthermore, we headed straight there."
"Soundproofing?" Tracy suggests to Inari, and stretches. "Still no reply from mom," she says with worry in her voice. "We were coming here anyway, and Chaz always liked redheads. But.. he'd pass the receptionist every day and not notice she looked like his girlfriend? Do you think the shifts where set up to make sure they were all here at once?"
Jason pushes himself out of his chair and heads to the door to peer out.
There's no one outside in the hall, except for a passing security robot - one of the humanoid models, in blue with gold armor.
"Security, status please," Jason tells the bot.
"So.. it could all be a set up, specifically to get us to cause the security alert and conveniently trap ourselves here in the lockdown, I guess," Tracy suggests. "I only say that because.. I can't get through to mom! So maybe someone got her already?" She starts to look very uneasy.
"Kimon, do you hear me?" Jason tries to transmit to his home machine.
The bot peers in at Jason through the window of the door. "All's clear, guv'nor," it says with a British constable accent.
"Are they supposed to have that accent?" Jason asks the others.
"I can attempt to test interior communication links," Cadena offers, calling up his holographic e-message interface, and going into the drafts folder.
Static. Jason feels like he's wearing wool mufflers over his ears, except they're not actual physical ears.
"We're cut off," Jason confirms. "My link home is severed. We may have gone through a portal for all I know."
HEL's avatar intones, "The majority of the Empire infiltrators have been arrested and brought in for questioning. There remain approximately thirty persons at large. For your own safety, Mr. Edwards and Miss Trudeau, I recommend that you remain in this laboratory. They may be armed and dangerous."
"So are we," Jason points out. "And I'm tired of being trapped in a building and hunted. I think I would rather just be shot at this point."
Tracy scrunches her face in thought. "Yeah, that would explain the Shadow energy, the duplicates.. But how do you test that?" she asks. "And I don't remember the robots using accents. HEL, can you tell me where my mother is?"
"Your mother is resting at home, Miss Trudeau," HEL responds, ignoring Jason's sally. "She has used the recommended maximum daily dosage of stimulants and is now recuperating."
"Who controls the security robots?" Tracy asks next. "Do you do that directly, or is it one of your sub-systems?"
Cadena quickly taps on the translucent interface hovering in front of him, quickly grabbing a draft message without opening its contents, and grabbing the frequently-used-address links for Mrs. Holly Trudeau and Mr. Charles Burgundy to put into the "To:" line, and selects the option to request a "notify upon opening" receipt flag. Then he hastily taps "Send."
"Security robots are controlled by Ganglot, Gangloti, and Ganglat. I have brought additional robots online to compensate for the reduction in force caused by this unforeseen demand. In addition, I have activated communication jamming on all bands in order to prevent as-yet at large personnel from sending messages to their confederates," HEL adds. "Email screening is now in effect under the Double-B Protocol. Messages from and to suspected infiltrators will be held until further notice."
"Are we going to go out, or sit here and wait?" Jason asks the others.
"Have any of the security systems undergone suspect maintenance?" Tracy and looks to Jason. "Send RIU on ahead? Your link to him shouldn't be affected."
Cadena blinks as he gets an in-message, reads the very short message, clicks an auto-confirm default response, then quickly dismisses the interface. "My test message got through within the building. I do not expect an immediate response from Mrs. Trudeau, since she is asleep."
Inari tries the door. "It's locked! Hey! Let us out!" She bangs on the window while the security robot continues on its round, happily ignoring her.
"I think it's best to assume right now that we are in our own reality," Tracy says, and goes over to the door to see if her thumbprint will unlock it.
"Feel like being a spy, RIU?" Jason asks, only to sigh in annoyance when the door is declared locked.
RIU beeps! enthusiastically at Jason. Just point the way!
The door blinks a message on the security pad: "SECURITY LOCKDOWN. State reason for departure and a robot will be sent to escort you."
"Oh bloody hell," Jason says and runs his hand down his face as if realizing something. "Guys, we may be screwed," he remarks. "Remember when HEL flickered? Who's to say that isn't HEL now, but a different AD with a HEL overlay." He turns and marches over to HEL's display. "HECATE, if that is you, just please drop the deception now. You have us where you want us."
"I need to check the basement for Nidhogg," Tracy tells the door.
HEL's avatar flickers. "AD designation HECATE unknown. I'm sorry, but if there is nothing else, Mr. Edwards, my attention is needed elsewhere."
"Part of the changes were communication lines. There is now no way to know if we are dealing with authentic systems or not," Jason informs the others and rubs his forehead again. "I should have realized coming here was a mistake."
Cadena walks over somewhere where he's within Jason's line of sight, and stares up at the ventilation shaft opening for a bit.
The secondary lab is full of computers and holographic display equipment, plus heavy duty power conduits for the Q-Core - even if it's a small one, it still has big needs. Outside, signs on the wall point the way to the break room and the bathrooms. A ventilation shaft runs overhead with small vents, but at six inches in diameter, it's too small for Tracy to fit.
"Should I try picking the lock?" Tracy asks.
HEL's avatar flickers out as Jason appears to no longer require its services.
Jason eyes the quantum core. "Do we have a quantum probe in here?" he asks. "I want to see if we can recover any data streams by looking for reflective residue in the core's housing."
"Like a holographic imprint?" Tracy asks. "I don't even know what a quantum probe is though."
Cadena tries staring for a while longer, but then looks askance and sees that Jason and Tracy seem to be very busy right now, so he gets back up and trots around the room, resuming his scan for useful resources and possible threats, occasionally peeking out into the hall, listening for signs of life, etc.
Though Jason hasn't actually worked with one before, he's read about quantum probes in Scientific World Weekly. So what looks like a bit of modern art done up with a technological veneer to Tracy and Cadena and Inari, is recognizable as a quantum probe to Jason - and in fact the Q-Core is mounted so that all he would have to do is swing it down and power it up. There's only one catch... The observer principle ensures that the minute he begins probing it, the data begins to change, so he will metaphorically have to ride it like a surfer on a wave, until it hits the sands.
Inari glances over at Jason and his newest toy, then reaches down and scratches under the pacing dog's chin. "Don't tell me, that's a giant high-powered laser and you're going to use it to burn the door lock out, right, Jason?"
"Well, if you want to try and pick the lock, go for it. Cadena, if you have any thoughts, please speak them. I'm going to try and see if there is anything worthwhile on this core. Just having a core might be helpful," Jason suggests. He returns to a wheeled chair and plops back into it, then kick-rolls himself over to the cube. As he pulls it down, he says, "No, it's a quantum probe. I'm going to try and extract any remaining data off the surface casing of the core here. It might be useful, it might not. It might even kill me. Who knows?"
"You're going to... Why? What could be in there?" asks Inari, puzzled.
"That's a good question. It was erased on purpose, so something might be useful," Jason says.
"If we don't watch, then you wouldn't be dead until someone looks at you," Tracy quips, then gets out her G-Tool knife and opens the tool compartment. She reconfigures the tool a bit, so that she can use it to try and pry off the lock housing.
Cadena, who has stopped his pacing, looks to be deep in thought. "By the way, I owe an apology to you, Mr. Edwards, and you, Inari. I did not understand what was going on in the Q-Core room, and I was so on edge with the RIU proximity incident that I was in error in my assessment of the situation. My tiered directives were in conflict, and I did not behave rationally."
The security panel flickers and then dies as it's disconnected from the underlying circuitry. Underneath, Tracy sees a standard electronic lock. A few months ago, she would have been completely confused by the maze of wires. Now, it just takes a few minutes for her to trace the wires and see which ones she needs to short together to open it. Of course the minute she pops the door, it'll be quite visible to HEL and her security robots.
Inari frowns. "All right. Anything I can do to help?" she asks, coming over to rest her hands on Jason's shoulders as she examines the Q-Core.
"Okay, I can open the door if we need it," Tracy says. "But I can't block HEL from noticing when I do."
"None is required. I am aware that you are programmed to protect Avatar's property and employees over anyone else. If your programming deems me a threat you must neutralize, well," Jason says and shrugs, "Just don't expect me to go down easily." Inari's question requires more thought. "I'm ... hm. Well, if things start going badly it may help to just shut off the power to the probe and the core. It might save my brain from being fried. Otherwise ... just stay close? It's ... calming. RIU, I'll probably need your help here in recording and digging through the wave that's going to come."
Inari looks over at Cadena puzzledly. "Did you do something back then? I was a little busy with Monica."
RIU chirps, snuggling in protectively around Jason's shoulder.
"All right, I'm here," Inari assures Jason, squeezing his hand. "Just point out the power switch to me."
"I kept him from running after you, so no reason for you to have noticed," Tracy says, sitting on the floor with her back to the door.
Cadena starts to answer Inari, but closes his mouth again, as she's obviously occupied. He settles down and conjures up his e-message interface again, tapping and swiping at the translucent holo-panel.
The security robot comes back the other way, whistling. Yes. It's definitely whistling 'God Save The Queen'.
"The switch will be heavy, since this requires a lot of power to run. It'll be at the end of the power conduit cables there," Jason explains and points to the cables as they snake off into the lab. "There should be a cut-off here, it would be dangerous to have it elsewhere. And oh, I've never actually done this ... so I'm going to wing it. I hope I remember everything the magazine said about these things," he adds as he reaches up and turns on the probe. "Scan local frequencies, locate communication channel for probe, link," he instructs his implant.
"Understood," Inari says. She gets up to make sure of the switch's location.
The interface for the implant appears before Jason in his mind. Through it, he can see the same data sea that's being displayed right now, quiescent, not a ripple to be seen.
"Bah. Indirect observation, then," Jason thinks. He starts fiddling with the probe, trying to make it actively scan the area next to the cube ... and rely on indirect interference from the cube itself to help locate the data.
Cadena continues to tap and swipe away at his e-message interface, occasionally glancing up at the window, or flicking his ears when any unusual noises occur.
The increased scan gives Jason a reasonable baseline, allowing him to overlay it as a differences map, where he can then expand them to create spikes, ridges, and valleys. He gets the funny feeling that he's looking at... Ghost data.
Hugging her knees, Tracy watches Jason work. She chews on her lower lip nervously, then tries to contact Chaz on her wrist-comp.
As the probe continues to sift through the data, it shivers, and for a few horrifying seconds it seems as if uncertainty might ripple through the entire thing and cause it to destroy itself... But then Jason manages to get it to stabilize. Wait-- there. That looks like simulation data!
Jason immediately turns on the record to recover the simulation data before it disperses. "Eureka, there is still lingering data..." he mutters absently due to his concentration.
It takes painstaking work, but eventually Jason arrives at a low-rez simulation snapshot. It's nothing that can be brought back to life, but enough to give a holographic view of the underlying simulation.
"How much?" Tracy asks, pulling out her chipware-wallet. "I've got some blank v-chips.."
The resurrected city takes shape slowly on the table, layer by layer, built up from wires and lines, then shapes and walls of light, until Test North Bend appears once more. It looks just like when Jason and Randall and Holly were there, years ago... Except that the place where they went through the gate in the park has become a giant Gothic cathedral of black stone. And the buildings all around have been rigged with long vanes that look disturbingly similar to the ones now being built worldwide by the Zeus Weather Management Project.
Cadena dismisses his e-message interface, and gets up to trot over to Tracy's side as he gazes curiously at the holo-display on the table.
"That doesn't look good," Tracy notes. "Is there a timestamp on any of those modifications? I mean.. was all this still running for four years until just recently?"
Inari shivers. "Did we do that?" she says, fixing her eyes on the cathedral. "Doesn't look a thing like the package."
"Well, Miss Arcadia won't be happy. That's isn't the simulation data for Arcadia. That also explains why it was wiped. It appears someone was using the disconnected core to build a new reality, separate from all the others," Jason remarks as he sits back and stares at the images. "I have no idea when it was created, there isn't enough left to tell you that; this is just the most recent. Its most worrying aspect to me are the vanes. Those are identical to the Zeus system. I think someone plans bringing a new reality in again. And it isn't a pleasant one. Great. I finally reunite with friends and people I care about, just in time to watch it all be destroyed."
"Well.. at least.. we know where to look next?" Tracy asks, looking a bit scared and lost.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-04-03-trapped-in-avatars.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069, noon Eastern
Their tour to Avatars had gone uneventfully, until Jason identified several identical looking technicians. After Inari collared one, they brought her to Chaz in Basement One where they learned that she had come from Tesliem under the direction of the mysterious Jason Dragonhand, and had along with others like her, made various changes to the Avatars complex. There is now doubt about whether HEL is still in charge here, or whether some nefarious AD is responsible for them being locked into the lab, along with the supposed roundup of all Tesliem infiltrators. At last sighting, Chaz had left with 'Ed' to escort Monica to the interrogation facility.
Fortunately, at least, they were able to reclaim their weapons, leaving Jason with his bulletproof vest and police service pistol, Tracy with her short-ranged taser and G-Force tool knife, and Inari with her laser sword. Cadena remains equipped with formidable fangs and keen senses.
For the last fifteen minutes, Jason has been going over the data that "HEL" supplied about the modifications made by the Tesliem infiltrators, with Tracy, Cadena, and Inari looking over his shoulders and conferring about their situation. If the data is accurate - and it appears to be, from what Tracy knows of the Avatars complex - then even though the modifications are widespread, there are three major loci where most of their impact can be undone: the Central Hub where internal communications and security are managed for the Vanirheim building, the Q-Link Conduit which processes the majority of communication with the outside world, and the Satellite Link, an old and outdated satellite dish for emergency use reached through a subterranean tunnel... More importantly, if they want to get out to the ground floor, it's much less likely to be guarded than the elevators and ground floor.
After copying the recovered simulation data from Blake's old Q-Core to some of her vr-chips, Tracy asks very quietly, "Can you do anything to these locations using just RIU, Jason?"
Cadena waves his paw over his holographically-projected e-message interface, which he had been editing and re-editing and deleting in full sight of the others, but never actually finishing. Instead, he just aborts the message and dismisses the interface, which he had been using as an electronic brainstorming pad for the sake of passing notes to his comrades in the hopes of evading being listened in on by the audio pick-ups to the room (normally used to access the intercom system or to contact HEL).
"Okay, so," Jason says as he reclines the all too comfortable faux-leatherclad office chair. "We have to remain calm and take a methodical approach to all of this. We need to deal with the system issues one by one without raising too much suspicion. And yes, Tracy, I can probably work with most of the areas just using RIU. He has built-in tools and I can see through his eyes. Also, hm. Inari, you said you could actually use your old powers here?"
Cadena's ears perk, and he looks attentively toward Inari, as he stands back up on all four paws.
Jason seems to suddenly think of something. He tries to bring up the list of all the people that were 'round ' just before this situation began. Namely, he looks for a list of guards.
RIU sits up on the computer desktop where he's been curled up, and extends his claws. Ka-ching! While they do look sharp, they're also variously shaped so that they could be used as lockpicks and tools.
"There are also the robots," Tracy notes. "They are run by HEL's subsystem AIs. If we could tap into those, we could see what's happening through them couldn't we?"
"Tapping into them is highly unlikely. I did give Holly recommendations on the security systems here, you know," Jason points out.
Cadena says, "Tap into them? We could simply ask, since that seems to be all we have to do to get HEL'S attention in this room."
"And you didn't have any back-doors installed in case you had to take over the building?" Tracy asks in mock surprise.
Inari nods from where she's been studying the simulation data... or perhaps reliving her traumatic days in Test North Bend. "Mostly illusions. I can disguise myself, maybe one other person. It might be more accurate to say I can recharge here, as I could back home." Her eyes flick sideways to Jason. "Well, home in California, at any rate. I wonder if they have a portal running somewhere?"
"The probably do, and I suspect it would be in the lower levels," Jason remarks. "What I could probably do is modify our security badges to make us detect as someone else."
"I'm surprised you can use the Shadow stuff at all anymore," Tracy admits. "Didn't Jason switch you to a Light being?"
"Her flag was changed a long time ago. Back when she had flags, that is. Now she just has other things to fiddle with," Jason remarks vaguely.
The golden vixen smirks, then snaps her fingers. A candle-flame appears over her fingertips. She holds it near Tracy so she can feel the heat. then tosses it to Tracy. "Catch!"
"Even HEL has limits, Cadena," Tracy notes. "I doubt the AD is personally monitoring everything. Just an AI routine that listens for keywords and manages the communication system. I think. If I were in charge, I wouldn't want to be distracted by every little word."
"Tracy!" Cadena barks, as he leaps to intercept the flame!
And then Tracy is ducking the flame!
A list of security guards comes up on the terminal where Jason is working. There seem to be six or so guards on this floor, but only two at the nearby security post by the main elevators. There must be some other security posts - one post wouldn't be enough for a building this large.
The flame arcs over Tracy as she dives for cover, and Cadena throws himself after her. It splashes on the floor and evaporates... Leaving not a mark.
Inari grins widely.
Cadena snarls, claws out, interposing himself between Tracy and Inari.
"Inari ... if you're done scaring the children ... could you come over here?" Jason requests. He does look amused, but he's trying hard to hide it by forcing a straight face as much as he can, then curling his finger in a 'come here' gesture.
"I see why you and Jason get along so well," Tracy grumbles from under the table.
"I would have been a kitsune if I, well, wasn't born a human in the real world," Jason claims.
The white dog doesn't seem to catch onto the levity, still growling, hackles raised, ready to defend his master from any threat, real or perceived.
The black-jumpsuited golden vixen raises an eyebrow at Cadena. As she gets up from her chair, she explains, "Illusion is born of light as well as shadow. A little light-crafting, a bit of warm breath at just the right time... It's all about misdirection."
Tracy reaches out and pats Cadena on the back. "It's okay, just embarrassing," she explains as she crawls out from under the table, and goes to check the door. "Now, if security is really monitoring everything, I'd expect a robot to show up to see if there was a fire or fight in here."
Inari agrees with Jason, "You'd make a wonderful kitsune. We should arrange it."
Once Inari gets close enough, Jason reaches over and delicately plucks Inari's recently returned security badge from her jumpsuit using just two fingers. "Thank you. Now, lets see about renaming you to .. what? Er, I that's not exactly possible you know."
Cadena's hackles return to normal, and his not-quite-dog-like claws retract. His tail drops a bit, and he has the look of a dog that knows he's been had.
The guard robot clunks by on its patrol route, apparently not interested in the going-ons in the lab.
"RIU, I need you to pop the seal on this badge, please. I'll need direct access to the embedded chip to recode it, given the concerns about the comm lines here," Jason thinks to his little dragon as he holds the card out for it to take.
"Nothing's impossible for you," Inari claims, leaning over Jason with her hands on his shoulders.
RIU beeps! It gives Inari a territorial hiss - my shoulder-perchy-spot! - but obeys its master, extruding a claw and slicing the badge carefully.
"Genetic re-engineering myself is. What you suggest would require a trip back into the VR world, access to it, being inundated with VR molecules, rewriting myself, then rewriting myself back to being real. That isn't something I could probably manage," Jason points out. "Okay, RIU, connect your little claw into the I2C line, please. I need to change the ident on the badge. Patricia, I think. The only female in the list. Tracy will have to settle for being male,/" he thinks to the dragon.
"Miss Inari," Cadena finally says, stepping around the table, while giving Tracy a bit more room, "I regret my inappropriate reaction, but I humbly request that you refrain from any pretense of putting my master in harm's way, even for dramatic effect. Unfortunately, I have some difficulty in separating play-acting from reality."
"We can call the robots to escort us places too, if it's a good enough reason," Tracy says, "like going to the bathroom or getting a snack maybe. I don't know if the bathrooms have bigger ventilation ducts or not though."
RIU pops a different claw and pokes the badge's exposed circuitry! A tiny blue spark pops as it connects.
Inari smiles down at Cadena. "I'll be good, but... You should have seen the look on her face." She giggles.
"Or we can take over the identities of people who have access and explore without escorts," Jason points out. "Now, please .. no distractions, I have to retransmit the codes through my link to RIU, which means I have to read it. It'll be slow ... but should be secure since my link to RIu is a bit ... well, custom." Inari's comment to Cadena causes him to add, "She likes to see surprised looks on people's faces. Trust me on that."
Tracy is turned away to hide her flush of embarrassment.
The badge's surface shimmers... Then the name 'INARI' fades slowly. In its place, a new name 'PATRICIA' appears.
The picture still shows Inari, however.
"Tracy ... " Jason remarks, "And Cadena. How brave do you feel? If we could get into the VR lab next door and I redirected the VR link into the actual internal network, would you be interested in trying to 'do battle' with any rogue ADs?"
RIU's eyes are still half-lidded as it concentrates on the connection, but this statement elicits a startled 'Eep!'
"Battle?" Tracy asks, eyes wide. "Is that even possible?"
"I do not understand the concept," Cadena says, wresting his attention from Inari and looking at Jason instead. "However, I shall do my best to be of assistance, if you believe it within my capability."
"And bingo, new name," Jason says, victorious. He takes the badge from RIU and reaches backward to stick it to Inari's chest. Of course it's only afterward he realizes where and how his hand landed. "Sorry!" he says quickly and pulls his hand back. Trying to recover, he explains, "What I mean is, attacking the compromised system from the inside and outside. If you could keep it busy on the inside, it's less likely to notice me messing with the hard links and removing the secondary comm channels they installed."
Inari squeaks at Jason's hand, then leans down and nips on his ear. "Scamp."
"It wasn't intentional!" Jason claims.
RIU batbatbats at Inari. My ear! Er, my master's ear!
"I confess that I have no training or talent in the areas of computer usage beyond basic familiarity with the most 'user-friendly' of interfaces," Cadena says. "I have no ability at more involved computer usage, such as 'hacking.'"
"Oh, so.. be distracting?" Tracy asks, and looks to Cadena before looking back to Jason. "Yeah, I can probably do that."
"I should also note," Cadena says, "that I would have considerable difficulty in resolving any apparent contradictions in prioritization of orders that pit my requirement to obey my master versus my obligation to protect Avatars LLC property and personnel in general."
Inari smirks at RIU, then adjusts her badge. "So, I'm Patricia, security guard, what are you doing and do you have a license for that, mister?"
"We have basically three options I see. One is getting to the ground floor and removing the modifications to the central hub. That should ensure HEL is well, HEL. There is also the matter of the Q-Link itself. That's some pretty nebulous tech, but if it could be fixed, we could probably connect to the outside world. There is also the old satellite link. From a safety standpoint, going through the network in a VR situation would be safer than wandering through this building. And even in this situation you have issues with dealing with the matter at hand, Cadena? If that's the case Tracy may be required to tazer you and lock you in a closet. We aren't going to be playing like Happy Princess Perfect angels in here. It's likely going to get ugly."
"To be blunt about it, you have to come to grips with the reality that Avatars as you know it is currently on old. We're in hostile territory right now. This isn't Avatar's, this is a base in preparation for invasion," Jason points out.
"We won't be doing anything damaging, Cadena," Tracy promises.
"We'll be undoing damage, it'll just look like more damage," Jason claims.
Inari asks, "How exactly is it safer to go through a VR universe controlled by an AD with delusions of godhood than through a building where we might be able to talk or sneak by any security checkpoints on the way?"
"The bullets aren't real, and neither are their delusions," Tracy replies with a grin.
"On a logical level," Cadena says, "I am aware of this. I regret that I am incapable of fully explaining the nature of, for lack of a better term, the inner workings of my mind to you. I am merely attempting to warn you of an area of uncertainty, in which I cannot predict my course of behavior under hypothetical circumstances. I can, however, make it clear that I will take any measure necessary to make it sure that I do not pose a threat to Tracy, even if it requires disabling or destroying myself in the process."
"You can disconnect from VR. You can't disconnect from a bullet in your heart," Jason explains.
"I order you to give me plenty of warning if you think you'll have to resort to one of those tactics, Cadena," Tracy tells the dog.
Cadena nods. "Certainly. I assure you that such a course of action would only be as a last resort, and that if I felt it was an issue, I would alert you at the soonest opportunity."
Inari looks dubious. "So, you want to have Tracy and Cadena run a distraction for you in VR while we take out the modifications in the real world?"
"Anyway, my suggestion is this. I'll send RIU through the ducts down to ground and try to fix the central hub. That ought to ensure the HEL we deal with is the real one. Now, Inari should be able to get through some security doors with the changes to her badge. As much as I hate it, I think she'll have to go out and be one of our covert agents in determining what else may be going on. Sorry, Inari. I don't want to put you at risk ... but I don't see other options. Tracy also have some skill at sneaking about, so she could do similar. The VR suggestion is just one of many options once we know more. It may be that it won't be required. I can't say until I see the hub. Well, RIU sees it and I see it through him," Jason tries to explain. "Frankly I don't want to risk any of you, but I can't do all of this myself."
"I understand, Mr. Edwards," Cadena says. "I do not think your suggestions sound unreasonable, particularly given the nature of the threats you have identified."
"I've been missing a chance to do something real," Inari assures Jason. She raises one hand to show Jason her bracelet, a black fox chasing a gold fox endlessly, Ouroboros-style. "Just download the maps and where you want me to go to my PDA."
"For a VR infiltration, we just need to go.. uh, down the hall a little bit," Tracy tells Cadena.
Seeing Inari and Jason getting back to work on the plan, Cadena clambers back up into the chair next to Tracy. In a lower voice, he says to her, "What is it we're looking at, here?" He turns to gesture with his nose toward the holographic display. "Everyone seemed to be alarmed at this just a bit ago, but I'm not quite sure what it is. Does this have to do with our current situation?"
"You've done plenty that has been real since you arrived. Just promise me you won't get yourself killed. I wouldn't have much reason to explore actually becoming kitsune if you were dead," Jason adds quietly to Inari as he carefully removes Inari's PDA so he can upload some data to it. "I think I want you to sneak to the lower levels," he explains, "And look for possible portals. You can probably feel them, given what you are. Just find them if they exist, do not go through them. We'll need to collapse them."
"So, the secret basement levels that weren't on the tour," Inari jokes.
"It looks like an early simulation of the Zeus ionic weather control system," Tracy explains. "Except the cathedral of shadow is still in it. So, to me, that means the system is really about doing something with shadow-portal energy. I'll have to analyze the patterns of the 'weather vanes' though. Then, matching that pattern against the real-world system should let us find any likely portal areas that it's meant to amplify or propagate. See, if you could broadcast the shadow energy all over the place, then an invasion force from the Empire of Stars could operate anywhere.."
"They are most certainly there," Jason says, not joking.
RIU curls proprietarily around Jason's shoulders while he fiddles with Inari's bracelet-PDA.
"You don't have to be so jealous," Jason thinks to RIU while he fiddles.
Cadena looks confused, whispering back to Tracy, "What is the Cathedral of Shadow? And does the Empire of Stars depend upon Shadow energy? I thought they used ... uhm ... I'm not sure what it's called, but from what RIU showed me ... the 'red stuff.'"
"Well, shadow creatures depend on it," Tracy says, and points to the cathedral in the simulation. "This was an inflatable castle originally. Blake's simulated North Bend would be periodically invaded by shadow creatures from the Diadem because portals would open at night, or in dark places. So when Jason and my mom were trapped in there, they figured where a portal was going to open and then inflated the castle around it to ensure it stayed open, I think. It turned into that, because.. uh.. that's what it used to look like on the other side or something. Anyway, it's still there in the simulation. So.. must be a reason, right?"
Inari grimaces. "So, first order of business for me, figure out how to into the secret levels. Hm." She looks over the building map, but says distractedly as Cadena speaks, "'Quintessence'. It's extracted from those giant creatures that live way down in the Dark, they look like whales but apparently they store up power in their bodies or something. You don't want to see their 'extraction plants.'"
"In theory then, they could open these portals all over the place, use the Zeus system to spread the energy around and then drive hordes of monsters through to wreck havoc on the world. Then maybe come through with their army and 'restore order' to a broken world," Tracy guesses.
RIU emits a contented purr around Jason's neck as his master uploads the data.
"Well ... my suggestion is to climb down the elevator shafts. They likely extend all the way down to any secret levels," Jason suggests as he finishes uploading maps. "The risk there being ... well, squashed by the elevator."
Inari frowns. "That seems a bit vaudeville. It might play on a kiddie show but really, 'swarms of monsters'? I'll put my money on the side with the modern weapons."
"Aha," Cadena says, nodding. "This Shadow Cathedral ... oh. Wait. Is this what popped up when Officer Cranston did something with the nanotech quick-assembly foam assembly unit? Or, that is, the play Halloween castle that was put up in the simulation town that your mother and her friends escaped from?"
"Yeah, it was all Cranberry's fault I suppose," Tracy admits.
The golden vixen reclaims her PDA and switches it on, causing the fox eyes to light up. A tiny scale model of the building appears. "Got it. We should arrange a code so we'll know if a message is from us, or from an imitation."
"I think she means the simulated town. Though I suppose she may also be drinking," Jason remarks in respose to Tracy's theories. "And yes, I agree we need a code. Hm."
Cadena looks impressed. "That looks MUCH better than any model I've seen before. What brand was that, do you happen to know? It's amazing what can be done with quick-foam assembly these days."
"Are you planning a Halloween party that you need an instant haunted castle for?" Tracy asks Cadena, and sticks her tongue out at Jason over the drinking remark. "If this whole thing is being orchestrated by your younger double, Jason, then you should have a better idea of his goals, right?"
"Basically, I think he wants to prove he's better than I am. Simple as that," Jason notes. "Now, RIU, are you up for some duct crawling?"
RIU perks up. "Eep?"
"Yes, you," Jason tells the little dragon and even pokes him. "I need you to sneak to the ground floor and find the central hub. We have to fix the comm lines there."
"Beep!" The tiny Chinese dragon stands to attention - still on Jason's shoulders. It looks all ready to set out!
"So.. he's trying to conquer the world just so he can beat you trying to stop him?" Tracy asks.
"How old is he?" Cadena asks. "Is he a teenager, perhaps?"
"Now, do we want to ask the guard to be moved to next door?" Jason asks the others. Inari could sneak out during that..." Jason suggests. "And yes, something like that. I helped save the world, so he wants to destroy it."
"We can try," Tracy says. "If the robot doesn't allow it, I've got the lock ready to be overridden. So.. uh.. I could break into the VR lab while they're chasing Inari around," Tracy notes.
"If we want to get into the VR lab," Cadena says, "we could simply ask to be moved there for my diagnostic. Right?"
Inari observes, "If the Convergence had happened, it would have overlaid the real world with the virtual world... Creating a universe ruled over by the benevolent WHITE, I suppose. WHITE would have loved to lord it over all Creation, dispensing treats to all its precious little heroes and champions. Maybe your double wants to do the same, but everyone would be under his control?" she suggests to Jason. "He always seemed pretty possessive."
Cadena whispers over to Tracy, "I'm sorry, I think I missed this part. His double is possessive? Did he have to fight his twin? Was his twin a champion of the Light somehow?"
"Well, I don't want her being chased around," Jason claims as he gets up and carries RIU over to the duct access. "You're suggesting he wants to become a God?" he asks, looking back to Inari. "I suppose that is possible. He isn't really me, so it's all guessing. As much as I would like to be able to know what he's thinking, I don't. So far it just seems like he's doing everything I would not."
Tracy tells Cadena, "No, everything his twin has done was after the Convergence was.. foiled?"
"And he calls himself Brian Montagne now, and tried to marry Inari," the girl adds. "So maybe this is all because she jilted him?"
"Oh," Cadena says, nodding. "All right." He blinks. "This other Jason doesn't have his own RIU, does he? Or ..." He glances askance toward Inari, cutting himself off. "Hmm."
"No, he doesn't to my knowledge. He just has a similar implant since his creation date was the same as my brain butchering date," Jason says.
"It was all about him," Inari recollects bitterly. "I'd be living in his house, having his kids, my singing would accentuate his movies... So yes, if he could be a god, he would. But he'll never be my god."
"Movies?" Tracy asks. "He wanted to make movies?"
"It was Hollywood. Everyone wants to make movies," Inari explains.
"Because I'm already your god?" Jason asks, then holds up his hands quickly! "Kidding!"
This earns Jason a cold fox nose to the ear.
"Ack!" Jason complains.
"Interesting," Tracy says. "He seems so opposite of Jason. I wonder if he's still single?"
Cadena looks to Jason, realizing he's been talking more loudly than he thought. "Ah ... if he has the same implant that you do ... mightn't he be able to communicate with RIU, then? Or does it not work that way?"
"Of course," Cadena adds, "there would likely be a matter of range...."
"Our link isn't entirely technological, so probably not. Plus I've made changes to mine. It's not the same as it used to be. I removed my kill switch, for example," Jason explains.
The white dog nods, looking to be deep in contemplation.
"And the other Jason is just an idiot if he thought it was all about him. It's about the other person when you care about them. You don't demand and you don't force," Jason points out.
"Hey, what if Jason Zero hasn't disabled his kill switch?" Tracy asks.
"If the other Jason is self-centered, I would imagine disabling a kill switch would be his first priority," Cadena observes.
"I doubt he would be dumb enough to leave that active," Jason notes, "And to use it we would have to have access to Dantech anyway."
Jason thinks for a moment. He looks at Inari and offers, "Okay, for a code ... how about yesterday's date? He proceeds to recite it in MMDDYYYY shorthand.
Cadena rests his chin on his paws while gazing into the holographic display, looking a bit melancholy, though his brow occasionally furrows as if he's working over some sort of puzzle.
"So, how do we keep in touch if everything is being jammed?" Tracy asks.
"That ... hm. Good question!" Jason admits. He lifts RIU off his shoulder and sets him near the duct. "Lets see what's in the closet. This is a quantum research lab. I bet I could use some sort of structural resonance of the building itself to act as a virtual network for our devices. It would be a matter of fitting them with adapters that are tuned to the nascent energy levels of the building structure. We just simply ... twiddle them a bit when we want to talk. Like old morse code only, well, not."
"You could remove the entanglement nodes from the old Q-Core," Tracy suggests. "We'd only have to carry around a few liters of liquid nitrogen each.."
RIU chirps! Then scurries into the ventilation duct and over to the nearby closet. Screwdriver claw hums, and the grill pops off.
"That sounds suspiciously like banging on pipes with wrenches," Tracy points out.
"And your point being? It works," Jason points out. "Simple and effective."
"Not everything has to involve changing the fabric of reality," he adds.
"Not until after lunchtime, true," Tracy says, and looks out the door window for the patrol-bot again. Really, someone should figure out its timing.
Jason has now stuck his head in the closet to see just what is available to work with. "Hey, duct tape!" he declares, "That's a staple."
"Cadena, do you know Morse code?" Tracy asks her dog while using the stopwatch feature of her bracer to time the robot patrols.
Cadena's ear flicks and twitches, as he continues gazing into the holographic display. His tail droops to dangle off the side of the chair. He shows no sign of hearing Tracy.
Inari peers at the display. "This old place can't be that interesting, can it, Caddie? You can't even make out the IHOF where we used to have breakfast all the time."
"Hey, look an old EMF detector. I could use that to just pick up changes in the building's structural fields. That should work. And hah, quaint, a transistor radio. Inductors, chokes ... an old pizza oven? Oookay," Jason counts off. "A hair drier? Why? Hm, probably better to not know. An old pair of Mr. HapptPants (tm) virtual pants for simulations ... er, don't need that. An edition of the Tracer Avatar's action figure? Yep, she still looks glooomy."
"They made an action figure?" Tracy gasps, after she gets the patrol timing down. "If I'm getting royalties, Mom must be socking them away and not telling me.."
"Yes, they did. With gravity-defining chest, even," Jason remarks as he pulls out a handful of junk and carts it back to the table to work. "Give me a few minutes to rig up a cheap network for our PDAs. Also, your dog looks stoned, Tracy. You might want to look into that..."
"What?" Tracy asks, and turns to Cadena and his strange contemplation of the hologram. "Cadena? What's wrong?" she asks, and tries scratching him behind the ears.
Cadena suddenly shivers and flinches. "Forgive me," he says, shaking himself out.
"What happened?" Tracy asks with a concerned tone. "Are you feeling sick? Did you get a holo-virus?"
RIU settles back in on Jason's shoulder and watches him work on the 'banging on pipes with quantum wrenches' system.
"The BLACK is strong here," Cadena says, with a hint of an unfamiliar accent that's hard to place. "The new WHITE does not know."
"Maybe you should tazer him after all, Tracy," Jason suggests without looking up from his work. "The closet has a simple lock on it."
"Shhh, this could be important!" Tracy says. "He maybe was contacted like this in the Gloaming. And the new White.. is.. uh, the AD in the servers, I suppose.."
Cadena blinks suddenly. "There is insufficient context for processing this information," he says, returning to his normal voice.
Inari looks up from trying to find whatever it was that was fascinating Cadena in the display, worry playing on her vulpine features. She remembers the WHITE very well. "A new WHITE? ... I suppose what we did kind of messed up the old one."
"Screw context, just repeat, verbatim, what you heard or saw. Let us analyse it," Jason suggests. He still doesn't look up.
Cadena blinks at Jason, opens his mouth as if to reply, then looks over to Tracy, ears perked inquisitively.
"Yeah, tell us what just happened," Tracy rephrases.
"As you wish, master," Cadena says to Tracy. "First, for purposes of granting proper context, I must provide you with additional information, as current conditions would seem to justify it, as per my most recent communications with Vice President Burgundy. I am required to receive acknowledgement from all persons present that this information is given in strict confidence. Sharing of this information with outside parties would constitute a breach of confidentiality, as detailed under..." He begins to rattle off what sounds like a painful amount of legalese, with language indicative of a non-disclosure agreement.
"The only person I could tell is my mom, and she's got clearance," Tracy notes. "So I agree. I've already signed like, 50 NDAs.."
"She didn't get a dog, she got a lawyer," Jason grumbles to himself. There's a crackle of electricity, then Jason is shaking his hand. "Ow. Stupid capacitor," he complains.
Inari rests one hand on her laser sword hilt. "Can we cut through all the red tape?"
RIU beeps!
"Mrs. Trudeau, Vice President of Security of Avatars LLC, is already aware of this confidential information," Cadena says. "I require acknowledgement from all sapient parties in the room. Mr. Edwards may answer on behalf of RIU, as per..." and then he launches into some more legalese.
"Fine, fine, I agree," Jason grumbles as he gets back to work.
Cadena looks expectantly toward Inari.
"Yeah, get on with it, I don't kiss and tell," Inari says. Her eyes slide toward Jason.
Jason coughs.
"Hairball, Jason?" Tracy asks of the cough. Perfectly innocently!
"That information is confidential and requires," Jason remarks dryly and repeated a very mangled version of Cadena's disclaimer.
"I have interpreted your responses as consent to the terms of this non-disclosure agreement," Cadena says, and then he closes his eyes, squinting, takes a deep breath, and opens them again. "I regret to inform you that some of the information I have given you previously was false. I am an artificial construct, but my means of manufacture was not as previously explained. I was originally created as a byproduct of the Fracture event. To my knowledge, however, I am not the same sort of entity as Miss Inari or as Miss Summers. I just now received communication from my original creator."
"You... really are an Avatar then?" Tracy asks.
Inari's eyes widen. "So, like when Akiko was fused with me?"
"Great, we do have a spy in our midst," Jason mutters and finally looks up.
"I do not know how to answer either of those questions in a meaningful manner," Cadena says. "In the traditional sense, no, I am not an Avatar. I am not connected to a Link, I do not have supernatural powers, I cannot be summoned or dismissed magically, I do not derive nourishment from the Light, and I am a mortal, biological entity, although of artificial origin."
"But.. you were created with the 'upgrade' trick like.. like the Tesliem agents?" Tracy asks. "Avatars perfected the technology?"
Inari says sotto voce to Jason, "Obviously they fused a dog with a lawyer. Must have been worried about lawsuits."
"I regret," Cadena says, "that I have been unable to ascertain the true nature of my creation. I have received only sporadic inputs from my creator, in a form that I previously interpreted as neural glitches due to instability in my personality. This most recent communication, however, has given me a greater framework of context to work from. I assure you, however, that my loyalty still lies with the Avatars corporation, and my primary priority is to see after the safety of Miss Tracy Trudeau, at the bequest of Mrs. Holly Trudeau. Also, although part of my mental conditioning has required that I memorize certain legal documents to serve as directives for my behavior, I am not accredited as a lawyer, and my advice on legal matters is in no way endorsed by Avatars LLC."
Tracy waves her hand in a 'get on with it' motion. "But who is your creator and what did they just tell you?" she prompts.
"I apologize for the delay in answering your original question," Cadena says at last. "In my 'dream,' I witnessed an entity that self-identified as a fragment of the AI formerly identified as the WHITE. I have received prior directions from this entity to please gather information to find out where the WHITE went wrong in its attempts to carry out its directives, and was manipulated into behaving in a manner that would be interpreted by sapient, free-willed beings as 'evil.' This entity self-identified by the new label of 'SPARK,' to differentiate itself from the current WHITE entity that has replaced it."
"Conditioning?" Inari wonders. "I think they overdid it on that score."
Cadena looks to Inari. "I was not formed with a fully cohesive or stable sense of identity. From a certain point of view, it is very crowded inside my head. This is my most stable personality, for lack of a better term. I apologize for any annoyance caused by my lack of brevity. I am simply attempting to be thorough."
"So, you mean the original WHITE, right?" Tracy asks, and looks around. "The one Jason and Inari dealt with? Who.. uh.. supposedly is still out there running a new reality or something."
"I have received insufficient information on that point," Cadena says, turning to Tracy. "I am under the impression that the SPARK has been displaced from a position of management of systems, replaced by the current WHITE entity that is currently responsible for running the artificial environment known as the Diadem."
"But.. where is SPARK then?" Tracy asks in confusion.
"I do not know SPARK'S current location in any meaningful sense," Cadena adds. "When Inari began to speak about the WHITE not long ago, I sensed the presence of this entity, despite being awake, and attempted to make contact. Briefly, I succeeded, and received a warning. I regret that I was unable to clarify the warning further. I know only that an entity, self-identified as the BLACK, which may or may not be the same as the BLACK AD in charge of managing challenges in the Diadem simulation, is diametrically opposed to the WHITE, in such a way that the SPARK has insinuated is outside of its normal intended role, and in such a way that might be at odds with our continued existence."
"Is anyone else getting a headache? All I cam gleaning from this is Cadena may not be entirely trustworthy, as there is no guarantee that another personality might supplant the current one," Jason says worriedly. "Or that his 'creator' may be benevolent in any sense of the word."
Inari frowns. "From what Holly said, WHITE and BLACK are the ADs that run the game. One challenges players, the other helps them. Without one, the other runs haywire. So when we wiped out WHITE, I guess they had to bring up a new one."
"Regardless of my current personality," Cadena says, "I am still required to obey and protect the Trudeau family, and to honor my obligations to Avatars LLC."
"Until one of those personalities in your head over-rides that," Jason points out. "Nothing you have said so far provides any sort of ironclad proof that those directives supercede anything else."
"I regret that I cannot conceive of a way to prove the veracity of my assertion, other than to give you my word," Cadena says.
"I should also point out a worrying conclusion from what you've said. If BLACK is the original one, but WHITE is new, then BLACK has a decided upper hand. More experience and knowledge, particularly about the Diadem as well as this world," Jason tells the others.
"Set aside the paranoia for a minute, Jason," Tracy says. "The SPARK must be active in the virtual system somewhere, and my mother already knows this and hasn't sounded an alarm, so she must trust Cadena."
"I would refer questions to Mrs. Trudeau," Cadena says, "but unfortunately we are out of communication with her at the moment, and I believe she may still be asleep."
"Then I suppose that this information and the fact it changes my original analysis of the data I extracted from Cadena's neurolink, in so much as the secondary feeds may be a fragment of an AD actually running in Cadena's brain isn't important either," Jason remarks dryly.
"Nevermind the paranoid guy, I'll just go back to building a comm link," Jason says, rolls his eyes, and goes back to exactly that.
"I didn't say it wasn't important, just that Cadena is trusted by others who already know the situation," Tracy points out.
"I can neither confirm nor deny that theory regarding the secondary data stream you detected," Cadena says. "I can only say that I do not know, and the fact that I do not know is a source of frustration for me, since I believe that lack of context interferes with my ability to effectively carry out my duties."
Inari says skeptically, "So, you're saying you have a bit of the old WHITE in your head, and it just warned you that BLACK is out to get us?"
Jason sets his tools down. "There. I need everyone's PDAs for a minute to hook this up," he says. "Then we can go about actually dealing with the situation."
"Lacking further information upon which to clarify the situation," Cadena says, "that is how I would interpret the warning, yes, Miss Inari, even though I do not understand BLACK's motivation."
The golden vixen sighs. "Well, we knew someone was out to get us."
Tracy hands over her Crystal Bracer.
"I'm not banking on it being BLACK quite yet. We made the same mistake once before and it turned out to be WHITE out to get us," Jason points out.
Inari does likewise with her Twin Foxes PDA. "Does it matter? If it thinks with electrons instead of neurons, it seems like it's out to get us."
Cadena says, "For the sake of discussion, since we cannot be certain whether this BLACK is indeed the same BLACK as the AD currently handling challenges in the Diadem simulation, I would propose that we come up with a temporary alternative label by which to identify this entity."
"So, by my count, we've got Sasha, the General, Jason Zero and the BLACK to contend with," Tracy says. "Personally, I haven't seen convincing evidence yet to tie Sasha in with the rest. The General and Jason Zero are working with the Empire of Stars. The BLACK may or may not be supporting them, or they may be using the AD instead. No idea what agency, if any, has taken over the security AD here. Is that about it, or am I missing something? I can't guess at whether Dantech or Voya have any real interests outside of their own business. No idea yet who is behind the Zeus project."
Jason pries open one of the access ports and plugs in a rather ugly-looking blob of wires twisted around an iron torus and a small quickly-built circuit board. "There, you can now use EMF resonance to communicate with everyone. The protocol is simple and we're probably limited to text and some broken voice, but it should work," he says. He tosses the Crystal PDA back to Tracy then gets to work on Inari's next. Inari's mod-chip seems less 'ugly' than Tracy's, but that could just be the lighting. "Yes, that's about the sum of it, Tracy," Jason agrees.
RIU beeps! into one comm. "Beep!" comes from the other.
"By the way, as point of clarification," Cadena says, "I cannot be certain that the entity I have referred to as the BLACK is indeed bent upon killing us, per se. I just have reason to believe that its priorities may be sufficiently at odds with ours as to put us in grave danger. I hope that, if I can gain more insight into this entity's objectives, I can gain a better understanding of the threat posed."
"I hope that we find enough dynamite that we can just blow it up and be done with it," Jason remarks as he hands Inari back her PDA too. "Your collar is next, Cadena," he says.
Inari combs her tail out as Jason works on her PDA. "To keep things short, let's call the enemy 'THEM'. Or 'NEMESIS'. Or 'LEGION'. Calling it 'the entity formerly known as BLACK' is just going to irritate the heck out of me."
The vixen gives Jason a kiss on his nose as he gives her bracelet back.
Cadena looks to Tracy for confirmation, then trots up to within Jason's reach, raising his chin to provide easier access to the collar.
"NEMESIS sounds like an appropriate label," Cadena says. "Unless instructed otherwise, I will use that term to identify this theoretical entity for the time being."
Tracy nods back to Cadena, and suggests, "How about INFRA for our BLACK?"
Jason pops open the front of Cadena's collar and plugs in a brick of wires and fiddly bits. The fact the wires seem to spell out 'PUPPY' is probably a coincidence. For himself he just sits an ugly bundle of wires around his head like some sort of demented tiara. "I would call it ORB because it's shorter and stands for Our Black, but that's me," he remarks.
Cadena blinks suddenly, and looks askance at Tracy (or tries to), though he keeps his head motionless.
"NEMESIS does fit though, in a sort of detached 'just happens to knock space boulders our way' manner," Tracy admits.
Inari switches on her comm, and fiddles with it. "Testing. Sibilance. Sibilance," she says, and her voice echoes from Tracy's comm, a bit scratchily.
"Right. Anyway, should we get moving?" Jason asks.
"Do we summon the security bot, or just sneak out between it's patrols?" Tracy asks. "I've got them timed.."
"We can ask the bot, or sneak out. I don't care either way. Opinions?" Jason asks.
"Ask and see what happens?" Tracy suggests.
"Sure. at least that way no alarm would sound if we're suddenly not in this lab," Jason agrees.
Tracy triggers the door intercom, and says, "Hello, we need a security escort to the VR lab."
Inari tilts her ears looking at Jason, then snares him for a dip-smooch. "I'm off to look for secret basements where NEMESIS could be hiding. I'll give you a ring if I find something. You... Be careful, all right?"
Cadena, seeing he's no longer needed for the work, discreetly trots away from Inari's and Jason's private moment, back toward Tracy.
That leaves Jason blinking and looking bewildered. "Wait, what? Me be careful? You're the one going into the belly of the beast, so to speak," he stammers out. "You need to be even more careful."
"Me? I've been to Cauchemarem and back, I know how to survive," Inari says with a laugh as she flicks her tail and heads toward the door... Which slides open as the security robot approaches. "Top o' the day to you, Constable Patricia," it says in a British accent as she brushes by. "How may I help you all, citizens?"
"Neural Interface Lab please, guvna'," Tracy requests.
"My friend, Tracy, is a VR addict. Since we're stuck in this building for the time being, could we go over to the VR lab next door," Jason clarifies for the bot. "She wants something to do."
"Ah, for the wee puppy's checkup? Righty-o then!" The blue-and-gold armored robot steps aside, 'holding the door' for them.
Cadena dips his head respectfully to the robot, then leads the way out of the room, cautiously checking both ways, up down, and across in the hallway for any waiting ambushes.
Jason thinks, "RIU, into the duct, head for ground floor, central hub." He then saunters towards the door to head to the VR lab.
Tracy follows along, and tsks at Jason for not doing an accent.
The robot tilts its head toward Jason at his assertion. "VR addiction, aye? Sad, very sad. You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than VR," it says cheerily. "But never fear, we'll have things sorted out by end of day!" It clanks along, escorting them toward the lab with a salute for the nearby human security officer - 'Mack', judging from his badge.
RIU beeps by radio - that is to say, inaudibly, from Cadena and Tracy's point of view. It slinks up into the duct.
Cadena cheerily wags his tail, sniffing in a friendly manner at the passing human.
Jason gives the guard a rather sloppy salute. He'd love to try and figure out if the guard is another plant, but has nothing to compare him to, nor the time. "I hope we don't die," he remarks quietly to Tracy while maintaining a stupid-looking grin.
Mack glances up, but seeing that they're being escorted by the robot, merely waves to them before resuming his scan of the security monitors. He's behind one of the two glassy walls of the security post, which guards access to the elevators down the hall past him.
"You worry too much," Tracy tells Jason. "Everything is under control."
The guard robot stops by the big glass doors leading to the Neural Interface Lab. From out here, there's a big holographic display which presumably would show whatever simulation is in effect, several sofas for the comfort of waiting personnel, and two L-shaped desks for the scientists running a simulation. Beyond that is a large medbay-like enclosure with four chairs, each of which is surrounded by all sorts of scanners.
The doors slide open. "Here y'are, guvnors," the robot says. "Enjoy your stay!"
"Thanks, we'll call again if we need anything!" Tracy tells the robot.. and lets Cadena enter first, just in case.
"You don't worry enough," Jason tells Tracy. To the robot he asks, "What if we don't want to enjoy ourselves and be miserable? Is there a box of thumbtacks in there we can poke ourselves with?"
The robot tilts its head with apparent surprise, though its face is not articulated to allow for more complex expressions. "Well, sir, I can nip off to suppies and get you a wee pack o' tacks if that's what ye be wanting."
"I'd prefer strawberry soy-pops," Tracy counters.
Cadena sniffs around the lab, poking around, listening and looking like usual, only wagging his tail once he's reasonably certain there's nothing in a position to immediately leap out and cause his master harm.
"Ah, no, that is unnecessary," Jason relents. "Not quite the reply I expected," he thinks, "But then nothing really makes sense right now."
Seeing the 'all clear' sign from Cadena, Tracy heads into the lab.
"Strawberry soy-pop for the lady then," the security robot says. "Will there be anything else, sir?"
"Ten tons of dynamite?" Jason asks hopefully.
"He means coffee," Tracy corrects.
Cadena trots a little more urgently into the room, perhaps as if he's trying not to appear to be associated with Jason.
"I'll forward your request, sir. Oh, coffee! Of course." The robot nods to Tracy and turns about as if to go fetch the requested refreshments.
"What?" Jason asks Tracy as he heads into the lab. "I was testing its response programming."
The constable-bot trundles off, probably in the direction of the breakroom.
"You were teasing it," Tracy claims. "We aren't here to play with the robots. We're here to mess with brains and stuff."
The doors of the Neural Interface Lab slide shut behind Jason as he steps in. Ka-CLICK.
"Testing it," Jason re-iterates, "Also, I think your dog hates me." So, stuck for now he heads to the collection of neural interfaces and peers at it. He also does a quick ping-check to see if RIU is having any issues in the ducts.
Tracy goes to one of the big workstations, sits down, and takes out her chip-wallet. "Let's see.. Twist-World should give us plenty of cover," she says, as she selects a chip and slots it into the workstation.
Lights flicker. The main holographic display comes to life, showing a bird's eyeview of the simulation world.
"What is this Twist-World?" Cadena asks. He props his forward paws up onto the edge of the holo display's work area, as he leans in for a better look.
"You know what I would love, I would love to talk to my counterpart. Actually, I would like to shoot him, but talking is usually part of the first date. Shooting is third or forth," Jason remarks as he goes to see this Twist-World.
Tracy pans outwards, to get an exterior view. From that vantage, the world appears as a long tube, with several glowing entry (or exit) points that can connect to other simulations. "It's my class project," she explains. "I never had enough processing power to make it work correctly before. It's basically a jungle full of Mayan ruins set on the inner surface of a space habitat, so it's rotating to simulate gravity. The physics of that are pretty complicated when it comes to moving around, since it's also a parkour course. But it's made to link up to other simulations, so, if we can link it to different security feeds, we can try to access them from inside the simulation."
"Ah," Cadena says, not quite looking as if he's fully up to speed on things yet. "Will we be using assigned forms in this environment? I don't think I have one defined for this ... universe."
Jason rocks back and forth a bit as he peers at the display. His expression, though, is a bit distant, as if he's not really looking at it.
"It uses human-default avatars," Tracy says. "I didn't create any special ones. I might be able to pull up a White Cadena though if they have one in the open simulation database here.."
"Confirmed, the doubles are still active," Jason remarks a bit absently. "One of the guards active has been identified as a duplicate."
The white dog looks to Tracy. "A human-default avatar should be okay," Cadena says, "but I think you will need to explain to me my role, since I do not have a personality framework developed to associate with a human virtual form. My displayed personality may be impacted by my apparent form and environment. Of course, when in doubt, simply remind me of my objectives if I seem to be distracted or disoriented. I will still follow any direct orders from you."
"Role? Well, just.. navigate the environment," Tracy says, then looks to Jason. "All of the duplicates? Jason, can you get me a feed to the detention area monitors? I'd really like to know where Mark and his gang are right now.. and Mike Dexter."
"What? Oh, detention area? I can try," Jason says and heads over to one of the panels to see if he can get it to bring up the requested location. "I also assume you do not want me to dive in with you. I don't think I can, anyway. I'm going to have to effectively dive into RIU soon enough and start messing with the shunts on the hub."
Cadena says, "I am not quite clear on what we're trying to achieve here. What are my primary instructions to follow while I am in the simulation, in case I am separated from you and unable to communicate with you?"
"Well, assuming we can get the security links connected, the goal is to hit them and set off the intrusion alarms," Tracy says. "If the system sends tracer agents, they'll be caught in the simulation world where we have the advantage."
"How am I to identify and react to 'tracer agents'?" Cadena asks.
"Anyone that isn't me or you is a security avatar," Tracy points out. "Lead them on a chase. We want to keep them tied up and focusing their attention on us."
Beep! Red lines of text appear. "Access to that function has been suspended until the current crisis has been--" As Jason taps away, the text disappears. "Access granted, Vice President Trudeau."
"Excuse me while I adjust my bra," Jason remarks to the monitor, then pantomimes doing just that. "Now ... lets find Mike ... then Tracy's old snogfest."
Tracy mumbles something under her breath at Jason's antics.
The monitor splits into several frames showing the situation in the security level. It looks like pandemonium, with about a thousand people all squeezed into a floor that should hold about five hundred. Mike Dexter, and Mark Berkowitz and his buddies might be in there but if so, it's hard to tell with all the people yelling about 'Something's wrong with security' and 'Let us out of here, we have work to do'.
"The situation is perfectly under control, guv'nor," a constable droid assures them. "We'll have things all fixed up by end of day, and then you'll be free to go. May I take your lunch orders?"
Clank clank clank. A security robot trundles up to the entrance of the Neural Interface Lab.
"Hmmm." Tracy watches the feeds, and then tries to access a map of the guard stations. "I think our drinks are here.." she comments.
"Well, looks like they've move all real employees down to that level, lovely. Oop, Bobby McRobot is back, time to turn the panel off," Jason remarks, activating the 'screen saver' so he doesn't spot that they're spying on the lower level.
The holographic display pans over miles of dense jungles, through which old crumbling stones poke here and there.
Tracy hides all of the non-simulation-related windows she had open.
Jason heads to the door to meet the security bot.
Cadena twitches his ears, and trots over closer to Tracy.
The doors slide open. 'Bobby McRobot' steps in with a tray with the requested strawberry soy-pop (in a plastic bottle with a convenient straw-top to make it spillproof) and a similarly packaged thermos of coffee. "Your drinks, sir and ma'am." it says in that overly fruity British accent.
"Did the coffee attack you while it was being poured?" Jason asks, "Proper coffee should be aggressive. It should slap you so hard your mother will feel it." Maybe Jason is trying to convince the system he's just a babbling idiot.
"Indeed, sir, it gave me a right good tussle, but I gave it a piece of my mind, I'll let you know, and in no time at all I had it wrestled into this bottle for yer drinking pleasure," the constable agrees. He trundles over to serve Tracy her strawberry soy-pop.
"Drat, I must have used that line on Holly once," Jason mutters to himself. Still, he collects the thermos. Coffee is not a thing to waste!
Cadena suddenly starts and sits up attentively at the robot's approach.
"Thank you, officer," Tracy says as she accepts the drink. "There aren't any hooligans roaming the halls are there?"
"Hooligans! I should say not, miss but I'd be telling a lie. Never you fear, our biggest and best are on the case," the robot assures Tracy. "If they durst act up, I daresay that they'll receive a right trouncing. Call me if you need me, I'll be right outside!" It retracts the tray and heads toward the door.
"The Ganglot twins must be shorting out," Tracy notes. "The robots sound more like NPC guards from the Diadem. But.. that was the GRAY's area of control, I think. HEL did claim there were extra robots online, so might have used GRAY as a third controller.."
"Well, let us know when we can leave," Jason tells the robot as it heads out of the lab. He also decides to give the coffee a try. "Weak," he concludes after a sample. "It should be thicker. Now, back to what we were doing. I need to focus a bit, RIU is under the floor in the hub. We're about to kick the first shunt..."
"Show me how to link up the triggers for the fire and intrusion alarms, and I will keep the system distracted," Tracy says.
Cadena does a quick check around the room, taking inventory of places to take cover in case of emergency, et cetera.
"Right. Lets get you annoying the system before I have RIU start working," Jason agrees as he heads over to help Tracy link up her simulation to various intrusion alarms nested throughout the building. "Lets see if we can remote-trigger these. Hm."
As she asks, Tracy tries to bring up the VR interface system for Ratatosk. "So long as we trigger them from within the sim, the system shouldn't be able to pinpoint the lab. We just have to keep ahead of the giant squirrels."
Cadena's ears perk at that. "These 'tracers' will take on the form of giant squirrels?"
"Well, I'm assuming," Tracy admits. "The could be eagles or dragons too. Or something worse."
"Squirrels just make more sense," the girl concludes.
The white dog has nothing to say to that.
The front half of the room has windows to the north and east side corridors, with posters on the south wall advertising Avatars settings. It appears that the only entrance, apart from the ventilation duct (not large enough for a human) is the sliding doors at the front. A fire extinguisher hangs just inside the door. The back half of the room has no such windows.
"You need to be careful, you know. This isn't quite a game. Most security systems nowadays will try to overload your synapses if you get caught. Some will try to effectively trigger a lobotomy. If you look like you're going to get caught I'll be cutting your VR links immediately. It'll probably make you feel disoriented and sick, but ... well, better that than brain dead," Jason tells Tracy. "don't take stu .. I mean, don't take unnecessary risks, okay?"
The sofas on the wall are plastic-framed affairs, with comfy cushions. If need be, they could be pulled out to form a makeshift barricade. The holodisplay in the center is a fixed installation.
"We'll need to use the neural interfaces," Tracy notes, and looks a little worried. "I don't know what safeguards those have or lack.."
Cadena starts rearranging furniture.
Several buttons on a pad next to the door allow the lights to be dimmed or raised in both half of the room... And then there's another button marked 'WINDOWS'.
"That's what I mean. I am assuming the systems here are red-class, which means they will employ lethal force," Jason says, "So just ... I don't want you hurt, okay?" He pokes at tome of the screens, seemingly flustered.
Tracy makes some adjustments to the simulation, then says, "Cadena, I've added an emergency eject sequence to the sim. If it looks like you're about to get caught, just say 'Railway Track Solvent' out loud."
Cadena nods to Tracy. "Duly noted."
"Railway Track Solvent?" Jason asks Tracy.
"Unlikely to come up in casual conversation, you have to admit," Tracy replies with a shrug.
The holographic display dims slightly as Jason fiddles with the security links, then brightens again.
The white dog then accesses the window controls, adjusting the opacity of the windows for privacy.
"Okay, time to stick our heads into scary machines and cause some mayhem," Tracy tells Cadena with a grin.
"So is Explosive Alien Knockers," Jason remarks. "Now, you're sure you want to do this? I can tell you that Hecate is a nasty AD, and that was just from being near its processing."
"But we don't know that this is Hecate, NEMESIS or Santa Claus yet," Tracy notes. "I'm just going to be tapping on sensors and causing false alarms. Since they aren't going to happen all at once, they shouldn't raise too much suspicion for awhile."
Cadena looks askance to Jason, then notes to Tracy, "For future reference, in case it is relevant, you can refer to this personality template as 'Real World Cadena.'" He then clambers into the scary machine, and asks Jason, "If there is any real chance of danger, is it possible to only put me into full immersion, and let Tracy participate via a non-neural interface?"
The windows go black.
"You won't stand a chance navigating the sim without me, Cadena," Tracy points out. "The reason I chose it is that any other avatar is going to have a hard time adjusting to the way it works to follow me."
"Merely a suggestion, Master Tracy," Cadena says, as he does his best to get settled in. "I trust your judgement."
"No, there really isn't. Look, I know I can be a pain ... but I don't want either of you hurt. Do not take unnecessary risks in there. Abort if anything gets ugly. Do not risk permanent brain damage," Jason says. "Now lets get you hooked up, then I can go concentrate on RIU and work on getting the redirects out of the system."
Was that something rustling in the jungle? Birds fly up suddenly, fading from view as they pass the limit of the holographic display.
Tracy follows Cadena into the interface lab proper, and sits back in one of the chairs. "Okay, hook us up Jason," she says.
"Okay, one more thing you could consider is the limited dive and use one of the simpler interfaces instead of full immersion, but you will not have all the environment feedback," Jason says as he follows Tracy and starts to hook her up. "Last chance, full induction or limited?"
Gritting her teeth, Tracy says, "Full. I'll never be able to hit the beacon points if I can't feel it all."
"Don't be a hero," Jason tells Tracy quietly as he leans in to finish connecting the full immersion helmet, "You have a family out here." One final connection is made, then he goes to set up Cadena for full immersion as well.
Cadena says, "Can you send me in first? To make sure there's no ... what is the term? 'Ice' waiting for as soon as we log in?"
"I can, yes. And I have the same advice for you as I did for her. Don't be a hero. Heroes end up dead," Jason says as he connects the final link on the artificial dog. "Its time to dive into the rabbit hole. Are you ready?" he asks the two as he heads to the activation controls.
"Warning acknowledged. Ready," Cadena reports.
Tracy nods, and takes some deep calming breaths.
"This is why it is easier to work alone. No one will morn if it goes badly," Jason says quietly to himself. He draws in a breath, then activates the dive command on a staggered drop. Cadena in first, followed by Tracy 30 seconds later.
In a flash of light, Cadena appears at the base of a pyramid - a humanoid white dog avatar, dressed in robes and holding a staff. Local gravity makes his feet feel heavier than his head, and he wants to lean in one direction all the time.
Cadena appears disoriented by the change in gravity and surroundings, standing up from a low crouch, and leaning on his staff while he tries to find his land legs. He frees his off hand to hold it in front of his face. He turns it over, looking at the furred back and the leathery "pads," furrowing his brow. He then taps on his forehead until he finds the solid "gem" set there. His ears swivel, and he lifts his nose, sniffing at his surroundings, then scanning for signs of ... someone.
His hand is on fire-- no, it's glowing!
In fact, Cadena's entire body seems to be lit. He feels the presence of the being that he calls 'Spark' nearby, and a sense of magical energies at his beck and call.
"I am here!" Brother Cadena calls out. "Where are you?"
There is no outward audible answer.
Brother Cadena nonetheless nods, and begins walking forward tentatively. "I do not detect any immediate threats at this time." The strange glow dies down.
Tracy appears next, looking rather nondescript and wearing a pink full-body jumpsuit. "Cadena! You look like.. yourself," she notes. "I was hoping for something less recognizable, but you must have an embedded avatar somehow. Aside from that, sense anything out of the ordinary?"
Brother Cadena turns about, and bows. "Greetings, Lady Tracy of House Trudeau. I am Brother Cadena of House Manjari. I have been sent to assist you. I feel a strong presence of the Light here." He looks a bit different than when Tracy last saw him - not quite so thin and spindly as before, nor as shrinking and awkward.
"Uh.." Tracy says, helpfully. "Well, follow me as best you can then, please," she requests, and then starts climbing the steps of the pyramid using her hands and feet.
"Is that panther a friend of yours?" Cadena inquires, as he starts to put his staff away over his shoulder, but then puts his back to the pyramid, adopting a defensive stance. "The glowing red eyes are the sort of thing I usually see as a warning sign."
"I didn't program any panthers!" Tracy yells, and climbs faster.
Now that Cadena has pointed it out, the panther is just visible to Tracy, by the eyes alone. It blinks (eyes disappearing briefly) and then starts to approach them, but is still at a great distance.
"We have to get to the first beacon," Tracy says. "Keep an eye for more animals though! We don't know if that thing is here to help or hinder us."
"Oh," Brother Cadena says. "Hail, being of the jungle! We mean no harm to you or yours. Might we parlay for safe passage?" He backs up toward the pyramid, tentatively checking for a way up the face that won't involve him tumbling in his robes back down. He doesn't appear to have the same knack for vertical travel that Tracy does. Under his breath, he utters, "Guidance to find a way to avoid conflict with this entity would be greatly appreciated."
The panther slinks out of the jungle and toward the base of the pyramid, whereas Cadena is at the top of the first flight of stairs. "Your presence here is unauthorized," it says, its voice rumblingly mascline. "This simulation is unregistered. Identify yourself and state your reason for being here."
The crystal atop Cadena's staff glows.
Midway up the pyramid, Tracy realizes something, and calls back, "Brother C., do you remember the magic words that will transport you away from this realm? If you do, just say 'yes' back to me, not the words!"
"Yes," Brother Cadena says absently. To the panther, he says, "I am an experimental unit, property of Avatars LLC, authorized to take part in this simulation for diagnostic purposes. Your presence is not expected for this simulation, and my personality conditioning does not account for a proper response. Please identify yourself."
Security is already on our tail, and Cadena can do magic here, Tracy thinks, then pushes onward. The stairs are farther apart, but then she's also getting lighter as she goes.
"Recon/security probe GNG-451," the panther replies, evidently assured by somethng in Cadena's manner. "I am tasked with eliminating threats to the system's security. What of your companion?"
Off in the jungle, more birds scatter - a lot of them.
"I am tasked to accompany my companion in a diagnostic test to see if there have been breaches to the simulator," Brother Cadena says, looking confused. "Your presence here by its very nature indicates a breach in the definition of this simulation. This is a customized simulation newly introduced to the system for testing purposes within a controlled environment, identified as 'Twist-World.' Do you have a conflicting identification for the current simulation zone? The human participant is using a neuro-induction helmet. Is there a risk of harm to the participant?"
"More than one out there," Tracy mutters, as she clambers to the top of the tilted pyramid and places her palm against the glowing crystal skull on top. If everything works as hoped, it should cause an alarm to go off somewhere in the building and then go dark.
A head raises from over the jungle and roars. It's a dinosaur! And a mean looking one too, its skin all black with red patterns of scales on its hide and sharp dark gray spikes on its neck.
The panther lifts its head. "Yes," it responds. "Go."
"That's.. just not fair," Tracy mutters when she sees the new security avatar. "Okay, no going low, gotta stay up high," she says, mentally plotting a new course to a beacon away from the dino. It'll mean jumping off at just the right speed and angle to hit one of the trampolines, arc over to the fallen causeway, climb the big pyramid and jump up and across through the axis and land on the beacon. "Piece of cake," she mutters, and gets ready to jump.
Brother Cadena casts a glance toward the dinosaur. "I have great trouble believing that is an intended part of the simulation." He squints his eyes. "Please take care, GNG-451. I wish to consult with you to compare data at the conclusion of this simulation. I resume my duties until receipt of further instructions." With that, he heads around the corner of the pyramid.
The panther snarls. "It is the Enemy." He slinks back toward the jungle, perhaps hoping to ambush the dinosaur as it makes its way toward the pyramid.
"Cadena, are you still down there?" Tracy calls from the top of the pyramid (where she probably appears to be nearly sideways from Cadena's vantage).
Tracy leaps from the pyramid, aiming far to the right of her actual target. Her course is bizarre, as she starts out light and gets heavier as she descends, but it works: the big trampoline has rotated into position below when she hits it, and is sent flying off an another wild arc. "Wah-hooooeeeeey!" she yells.
Cadena comes in a little too late, coming up a set of stairs that provided a far easier ascent. Still, as he witnesses Tracy's superheroics and strange interaction with gravity, he shakes his head in disbelief. "I hate to be so demanding, but I need another route to keep up with her."
The staff dims, then glows anew. It looks as if he'll have to go back down and trek through the jungle to pursue Tracy.
The dinosaur continues to crush the jungle underfoot as it heads for the pyramid. Black tyrannosaurus rex with red patterns and spikes... Clearly not a being of good will.
Brother Cadena nods, not surprised. He starts to head back down the stairs, resigned to a continuing game of "keep-away, though mindful of the inevitable danger of the approaching dinosaur.
At the far end of her arc, Tracy lands and rolls onto the 'soft' stone landing pad of the causeway, and looks back (and over and up and across) to see where Cadena is at.
As the dog-priest heads down the stairs, he sees the panther spring upon the tyrannosaur's leg! RAWR!
Seeing Cadena climbing down from the pyramid, Tracy really hopes he wasn't lying about remembering the escape words, then runs along the causeway towards the next, tall pyramid and starts climbing.
Brother Cadena sees GNG-451 engaging in combat, and raises his staff, then taps the ground with the base. "May the Light guide and protect you, brave defender of the jungle," he intones, as the blue marks on his face begin to writhe, and the headpiece of his staff begins to shift and contort.
Chains spring forth from the staff and from Cadena, orbiting about him and crossing each other. Then, he raises his staff and gestures toward the panther. At once, the chains leap out, arcing forward and joining a new orbit around the great cat.
The panther, or GNG-451 as it called itself, succeeds in drawing blood from the dinosaur! The dinosaur roars earthshatteringly loud and whips around, trying to bite the cat-- but hits only thin air.
Tracy misses the display, as she leaps up from the top of the next pyramid to pass through the free-fall zone of the rotational axis. She's finally satisfied that it actually feels like free-fall this time. Her own system could never manage it with the induction helmet for more than a few seconds before the 'falling' sensation actually caused her to wake-up out of the simulation. She spins and manages to land atop the next pyramid, and triggers the beacon there.
Brother Cadena nods solemnly to the brave cat, then hastens onward, following the leading of the Light, into the jungle.
"I hope all of this is actually causing the needed distraction," Tracy says as she searches for the next closest beacon.. or any suspicious disturbances in the jungle indicating another security intrusion.
After the next successive beacon, more rustles appear in the jungle, and soon the entire ring seems to be filled with activity, and wild snarling and roaring.
"I take that as a good sign," Tracy says. "So long as none of those are giant tree squid." She plots out her next course.
Tracy lights gracefully at the last beacon, situated at the top of the granddaddy of all ziggurats, so large that she feels almost weightless there. Down at the bottom of the ziggurat, a rather put-upon looking Cadena emerges from the jungle, draped in vines and dusted with dirt and detritus.
"Do you think Jason got things reconnected?" Tracy asks Cadena, a little worried about all of the activity in Twist-World. If the security system is still fighting itself... then does that mean Jason succeeded and HEL is trying to get things back in order, or that he's still trying to fix the connections?
Brother Cadena takes a moment to regain his breath. "I have no useful insights to offer toward that, save that our enemies and erstwhile defenders multiply! Please do not tarry!"
"There's no place left to go," Tracy notes. "We've triggered all the alarms. I don't know if we need to stay here to keep the battle going or just keep the simulation running."
On the other side of the terminal ziggurat, the granddaddy of all tyrannosaurus rexes appears, materializing section by section, lines glowing blue and then fading into matte black scales. It bares its fangs and roars at Tracy! "YOU! What are you doing? You are not meant to be here, mortal."
"Or we could eject!" Tracy yelps, and calls out, "Railway Track Solvent!"
Brother Cadena calls out, "You are the intruder! To whom do you owe allegiance, and what is your purpose?"
Fweeoop Tracy's avatar disappears, leaving Cadena alone to confront the monstrosity.
"Fool of a Champion," it roars at him, coming around the base of the pyramid. "I serve war, I serve chaos, I serve the conflict that heats the world and keeps it from shivering into a frozen block of cold order. I serve the BLACK, and you would have done better to keep your nose out of our affairs!" It is close enough that Cadena can smell the bloody gore on its breath.
Brother Cadena shakes his head sadly and looks at the dinosaur without hatred. "You should know I'm not allowed to do that. You should know there will always be conflict, even without your help. You ultimately fight an enemy of your own imagining. And so ... Railway Track Solvent." He taps his staff against the ground.
Fweeoop!
The Neural Interface Lab swims back into their view. The lab looks just the same... But the monitor shows that the security level is now being emptied out. "We apologize for the delay," the robot near the camera says. "Please return to your laboratories and offices and stay inside until the emergency is resolved."
Jason, for his part, is half-leaning on a wall with his eyes closed.
Cadena's eyes pop open. He struggles, taking in the sudden shift in surroundings. "Tracy! Tracy, are you all right? Please, answer me, master!"
"I'm fine," Tracy groans from her own seat. "Did you try to talk to Godzilla back there?"
An incoming communication channel pops up on the terminal. A winged avatar appears. "This is GANGLOT, speaking for HEL. Thank you for your assistance. We have re-established channels to Vanirheim communications and security. We are now in the process of securing known infiltrators, and restoring normal functions."
"I suppose you could check the diagnostic output," Cadena says, wearily. "But, yes. And to the SPARK. I was incapable of phrasing my questions in such a way as to come to a definitive answer, except that our enemy is, one way or another, the BLACK - but that the BLACK'S objective has devolved. The BLACK is not trying to test and challenge, but to churn and create mayhem for its own sake. The BLACK has conflated its objectives with that of imaginary villains. That is all I can make of it."
"So.. it's gone crazy like WHITE did," Tracy concludes. "I wonder if all ADs that have to deal with human issues end up going nuts?" She gets up and goes to check on Jason, assuming he's still diving.
"And it isn't over yet," Jason remarks as one of his eyes cracks open. "The central hub is back online. RIU should be heading back up. I haven't heard from Inari in a while. She found an army of robots in the sub level two basement and was heading to check sub level 3."
"Based on my own experience, Tracy," Cadena says sadly, "I cannot deny the possibility. I can only hope that there is a way out of this morass."
"Robots, hmm," Tracy says, as she heads back to the simulation workstation and holo display, to see if the battle is still going on or not.
"At this point in time, we would have recommended initiating the Mistletoe Protocol," GANGLOT continues. "However, our systems have been compromised to such an extent that the success of this procedure cannot be assumed. We are presently monitoring high levels of quantum phenomena in the vicinity of the Q-Link. In addition, there is an abnormal amount of traffic passing through the Satellite link." The AD subprocess looks grim. "HEL herself is engaged in attempting to restrain BLACK from further subversion of our systems."
Ganglot continues, "Vice President Burgundy has recused himself and recommended that I request your input and assistance into combating this threat, Mr. Edwards, Miss Trudeau."
"Inari, this is Jason," Jason says into the comm. "If you get this and can respond, please do so. It sounds like I need to get to the q-link and deal with the modifications."
Inari's voice is crackly. "... zzt... get to the Q-link?... old Imperial ... portal..."
Cadena staggers to his feet again, looking wobbly, as he slowly makes his way after Tracy. He watches the display intently, a worried look crossing his brow. "I have difficulty imagining the BLACK could have come to this end on its own. This just does not seem like a natural progression. The WHITE saw disorder in the world, once the boundaries blurred and it seemed as if it was within reach. But how can the BLACK look at this world and see a perfect order in need of any more turmoil than it has already? There must be more to it. This cannot just be an accident."
"I don't suppose you can just open it up as a special event and let the Avatar's players hack up BLACK's forces?" Tracy asks the AI. "Maybe Jason Zero got to the BLACK," she suggests to Cadena.
"Ganglot," Jason now says louder, "I will deal with the Q-Link. If they are willing, I would like Tracy and Cadena to deal with the satellite dish. The dish is the source of an external attack by another AD. The Q-Link is the bigger internal ... " He pauses when he hears Inari. "That settles it, I'm going now. I'm not about to lose her to some Imperial Portal." "RIU, to me, we have to shut down the Q-Link," he thinks and marches towards the lab door.
"Okay, we have to take out the dish then," Tracy tells Cadena. "And then.. steak!"
"Affirmative. I will assign robot forces as escort unless you believe a covert approach is in order," Ganglot says.
"At this point, I may need the escort," Jason admits, "I expect the link to be guarded and I'll need them to deal with it. Right so ... remember when I said don't be a hero? Screw it. Time to be a hero."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-04-10-interlude-tracy-and-cadena-in-the-lab.htmlAs monitors flash updates on the security situation at Avatars LLC Headquarters, and security personnel can be occasionally seen and heard rushing about outside the laboratory, Cadena trots back in after checking on Jason. He tries to wriggle his way back into the heavy boomhound armor (since it had to be removed for him to get his head into the neuro-induction helmet earlier).
Although Cadena's "polydactyl" paws grant him rudimentary "fingers" to get more done than a true dog could manage, it's still far faster to have a human assist with the snaps and buckles. He apologetically noses Tracy for assistance.
Tracy turns away from the holo display to help secure Cadena's harness buckles. "So.. House Manjari was it?" she asks.
Cadena tenses. "Er ... House Manjari?" He pauses, then nods. "Ah, yes. Brother Cadena served House Manjari ... in the Diadem."
"So you're aware of what Brother Cadena does, but Brother Cadena doesn't always remember being you?" the girl asks, as she goes back to trying to get the schematics for the satellite uplink room and it's long corridor.
"For Brother Cadena, the in-character persona," Cadena seems slightly uncomfortable as he tries to explain, "I don't exist. The Real World doesn't exist to Brother Cadena, since the Diadem is the Real World for him. Or was. Now, I suppose, the worlds of the Gloaming have become part of his existence, hence the need to give his previous world a label - 'The Diadem' - to differentiate it. These other worlds are just as real to him as the Diadem, however."
"Except for this one?" Tracy asks. "You know, I find the split-personality thing more disturbing than the idea that you were created in VR and then stepped through one of these conversion portals. I'm kinda trying to not think too much about those."
"They aren't true split personalities," Cadena says. "They're roles. I just ... get disoriented easily when it looks like it's time for me to be playing a new role. I don't know how to better describe it. I ... I wonder how Lady Tracer of House Trudeau thinks of these things? She has actually been to the Real World, and she should know that there's a distinction, and yet she still resides in the Diadem, or some version of it."
Cadena looks expectantly to Tracy. "Do you ... keep in contact with her?"
"I don't," Tracy says with some bitterness. "She's the reason I left the Diadem." She finally gets the schematics she wants, and sighs with relief that it's not a straight corridor.
Cadena looks taken aback. "Did something happen? Did it by any chance have something to do with her role as Champion of the Light?"
Computer monitors flicker with an updated view of the Q-Core network as HEL struggles to rein in BLACK, depicted as schematics where blue lines streak outward, trying to form enclosures while red lines gather here and there, then smash through barriers. The BLACK is currently holding tenaciously onto the Satellite Link and the Q-Link; without those, it could be hypothetically restricted into part of the Q-Core facility, where just maybe, it could be purged.
"Of course it had something to do with that!" Tracy says. "She.. took my life! Everything I'd built up since I started playing - she took it all, even my friends! She became better than me."
"She made me obsolete," Tracy concludes, much more quietly. She enlarges the satellite control room and the adjacent bathroom and supply room.
Cadena sinks down a bit, tail and ears drooping. "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't think it ... ah ... I mean, I just didn't think. I was actually hoping you might ... er...." He blinks a few times. "I ... that ... sounds familiar." He shakes his head. "I don't think she's the Champion of Light anymore. I'm worried about that. I was worried. I ... don't know what I was thinking when I got that idea. I was conflating her with you. I was worried about you." He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Sorry, I was getting it mixed up again. Virtual reality confuses me that way."
"It's not so virtual anymore anyway, is it?" Tracy asks rhetorically. "Not when you physically walk to it. Even if we stop the Empire, it's still sort of the end. I mean, if you're rich enough, you can have a magical door in your mansion now that will give you anything or anyone you want, and you can walk through it and become anyone you want. Ten years younger? No problem. Why bother inventing anything new when you've got a magic wishing door?"
"Nothing comes without a price," Cadena says, "I know that much, and I don't think anyone in a position to do so has really considered the implications. There are so many things that the WHITE could have done, or the BLACK, or any other artificial entity controlling the Diadem while your mother and her friends were in it, except that, as AIs, they were still bound by certain constraints. Without those constraints - and eventually I think someone will try to remove them - I fear that the world could become like the chaotic rift that Blake stood at. This is my fear. This is my nightmare." He looks to Tracy. "I ... I think Tracer might be in trouble. It's nothing more than a hunch at this point. I want to find out more, but there are so many things going on, and I hardly know where to start."
"You were made to find out where the WHITE went wrong, right?" Tracy asks, looking at ventilation and cable conduits. "He didn't ask, that's where he went wrong. That's the only mistake I can think of. If he'd come out made the offer to run the world and give everyone what they wanted... well, there'd have been a war probably between those who wanted it and those who didn't. How high can you jump?" she asks.
"Er ... I'm not sure. Especially not in the boomhound armor," Cadena admits. "I suppose there's one way to find out...."
The white dog hops. It's not impressive.
Before he can dwell on his lackluster leaping performance, Cadena switches back. "I was tasked with finding out where the WHITE went wrong, but in a manner of speaking, I am not certain I was specifically 'made' for the task - at least, in terms of my physical form. I believe that my form came about either due to a side effect of a certain custom process that was introduced into the system in violation of normal protocols by someone who had circumvented the security ... or else because of an AI invocation of the same process."
"I was ... actually asking Jason a bit about that process, incidentally, just now," Cadena says, pacing around, moving some of the furniture around that he'd displaced earlier, and clearing a space in the middle of the floor.
"Hmmm," the girl goes at the less than high leap. She sticks her finger into the holo display, pointing out the supply room. "We need to enter here, where the security camera can't see us. Then get across to the bathroom - it looks like it might be a false ceiling, but if not we can cut through. From the bathroom we have to do the same to get into the link room. I don't know if there'll be robot guard in there or people. Jason is making some EMP grenades that would zap the systems in there, but that's a last resort: we need to take the link without alerting the enemy, so that we can extract the tracking data and see which satellite or space platform they're using to relay the signal. I think we'll have at least a half-a-second before they can react."
Cadena nods, then braces himself and takes a running dash across the room. This time, despite the weight of the armor, when he finally kicks off and leaps into the air, he manages to leap high enough that he could have leaped over Tracy's mother, without even touching her hair. If he'd tried the same feat with Tracy, however, the end result would have been catastrophic.
The armored white dog crashes into a couch. He'd evidently been too focused on the task of jumping high, and not enough on landing.
"That's better, but I don't know if we'll have room for a running start," Tracy notes. "I'll just have to boost you up if needed."
The white dog rolls over, picking himself up off the floor, and making sure he hasn't broken anything important. "Aha. Well ... I'll try my very best." He trots back over to Tracy. "Er ... you mentioned my personalities before, and that they concerned you. Would it help any if I were to give you an inventory, as it were, of them? I don't think it would be relevant to the task at hand, however, since this does not involve plunging into virtual reality."
"You mean there's more than just you and Brother Cadena?" Tracy asks in surprise, turning away from the display to stare at Cadena.
A security guard - human, and not evidently one of the 'duplicates' - looks in, having heard the noise. "Everything okay in here?" he asks.
"Oh, yeah, just testing how easy it is to move in armor," Tracy tells the guard.
"Oh," Cadena says, looking embarrassed. "Sorry! I'll get the furniture put back to the way it was." He promptly shuffles around and starts nosing the displaced couch back into position by the door.
The guard looks surprised as Cadena speaks. "I guess you're testing one of our prototype Avatar companion bots, huh? He looks pretty darn real to me! I wonder how much those babies'll cost when they get 'em into production."
"Probably less than you'd think," Tracy comments, thinking about how 'magical door' technology would affect assembly lines.
Cadena bows to the guard. "AVA-808-X024, White Cadena type. I was field-testing boomhound armor today, rather than the standard issue Avatars LLC companion protective gear."
The guard salutes. "Jake Cortlynn, security. I guess a top of the line model like you'll be out of my range for a bit, but hey, if you ever have puppies, keep me in mind, eh?" He winks and continues on his round.
Tracy turns back to the display, trying to isolate the section of the dish feed that would be between the true ceiling of the room and the false ceiling.. along with how big that gap might be.
Cadena just blinks embarrassedly, never coming up with a proper response to the guard. He trots back to Tracy. "I'll try to be more careful next time. Ah ... right. Other personalities. Yes, there are a few. Three or five to my knowledge, depending on how they're counted."
The girl twitches at that. "Three or five.. all different roles for specific environments?" she asks. "Let's hear them."
"The reason for my uncertainty," Cadena says, "is that there is a considerable amount of overlap, and very unclear division between them. I'm actually surprised that I didn't end up with a new one in the Gloaming - an alternate Brother Cadena, at the very least - but it seems that.... Ah. I digress. Yes, Real World Cadena is my primary, out-of-character personality. Brother Cadena came into being during my last assignment, as a mentor for a younger player, but combining elements of my Real-World appearance."
"Previous assignment?" Tracy asks, then shakes her head. "I'll ask about that later - go on with the personality stuff."
"White Cadena is largely unused," Cadena says, "consisting of my image of what a 'White Cadena' should behave like. This was at some point going to be my shell personality for interaction in the Real World, should my owner wish for me to behave as if I was a real Avatar transplanted into this reality."
"You use that when you're just pretending to be a dog, right?" Tracy asks. "Or is that just you acting?"
Cadena shakes his head. "I haven't actually developed a personality for 'pretending to be a dog.' That one is not terribly well worked out."
The dog looks disconcerted for a moment, then shakes his head and continues, "Black Cadena is a little harder to classify. It's not used for roleplay. It's a sort of internal adversary, devil's advocate, sounding board, personal critic, and threat model. It's become a bit confused lately, I think as a result of some peculiar dreams I had for a while. Black Cadena, for all its bravado in my head, however, would be a coward in the Real World, probably. Possibly annoying, unlikely to have much to say that's insightful."
"I guess it's like having an internal scenario simulator," Tracy says. "I've got an internal critic too. Everyone does."
Cadena nods. "It's been a bit more complicated because Black Cadena often takes on the role of play-acting as my former master, or a more cynical version thereof. Even as I say that, I know that makes no sense whatsoever, but very little of what goes on purely inside my head makes any sense whatsoever out of context. ... And then there's White Knight, an incomplete personality, closely related to White Cadena. White Knight is a sort of abortive development, left over from when I and my previous master were discussing what sort of role I might play in the Diadem."
"So you haven't begun developing a new personality because or your association with me yet, right?" Tracy asks, squinting into the holo display. "Who was your former master? Can you even tell me?"
Cadena says, "Well, we've been together only ... uhm ... two days? Or has it been three? That's not very much time to develop much of anything. If you had created a new character for me in the Gloaming, I would have certainly had a new one. I still am not sure why I ended up as Brother Cadena. I know that things are amiss, but that doesn't mean I understand why."
"Are you gonna tell me about your previous master?" Tracy asks, as she expands the view of the satellite dish feed, trying to find where the downstream cable can be cut before it reaches any sort of computer.
Cadena looks toward a random display, and says, "In the Diadem, she was Lady Pearl of House Manjari, bearer of the Rainbow Blade. Brother Cadena was her tutor, and frequent patcher-up of scrapes and scratches."
"Is that all you can tell me?" Tracy asks, and decides to search for the motor-control lines as well.
"In the Real World, she was a little girl named Margaret - or Margie, as she preferred to be called," Cadena says. "She was 6 years old when I was assigned to her. She was 8 years old when she died."
Tracy blinks and tries to process that. "How'd she die?" she asks softly.
Views come up, displaying the satellite comm cable - a hefty-looking bundle of wires that would take some cutting, given the military-look of the thickly shielded line - and the motor control lines. Both views are rendered in schematics; apparently while Jason restored control of the majority of the Vanirheim building, not all of it is yet back in HEL's control.
Cadena's voice wavers. "She was doomed from the start. Neither I nor Brother Cadena could have saved her. It was a relic of the 2050s. In a manner of speaking, she was born with a genetic timebomb. It was punishment because her family was of a class too privileged, too wealthy to understand the suffering of those ... less privileged. Less privileged, but still capable of creating nanotech capable of messing with one's genetic code so that one's offspring would be doomed to a short lifespan, that is."
"It.. wasn't Penny Arcadia's daughter, was it?" Tracy asks, feeling depressed about both the story and toughness of the satellite cable. She starts looking for the power feed to the dish instead.
The feed runs through a large box with a prominent red knife switch, behind a locked glass panel.
"Of course it was," Cadena says, claws digging into the floor. He twitches. "I'm sorry! Sorry. Black Cadena is ... Black Cadena is the one who keeps urging me to drop everything, to hunt down those responsible for this ... who keeps coming up with such imaginative ways to make them pay for what they did, not only to her, but others. And I fear what I would do - because it would be me, no matter what personality I claim is in charge, who is responsible for what I do - who would behave ... dishonorably, if I had the chance to exact vengeance."
"Maybe they were all caught before it ever happened," Tracy suggests. "Tell me, Cadena; do you think the BLACK is paranoid? Enough that it would embed a routine in the satellite dish computers to erase any important data when the downlink signal stopped?"
"I do not yet grasp the BLACK's true motivations," Cadena says. "The rantings and actions of the BLACK and its followers are more akin to a manufactured villain, not of the one who challenges. The WHITE that was at the head of a push to rework the world into a new image ... is no more. The Spark is but a fragment of the WHITE. There is no danger that the world will be overwritten in cold order. No. The danger is a door opened into unending chaos. The danger is being granted every careless wish, before you even have time to consider it. The danger is a world where impulse becomes reality, and we obliterate ourselves and each other with a careless thought." Cadena shakes his head. "Melodrama. That's overkill." He breathes deeply. "Paranoia. Paranoia isn't a word I've yet had a chance to associate with the BLACK."
"I have come to believe that the AIs have an inborn aversion to deleting data and processes that might be of use later," Cadena finally answers. "However, I cannot say that holds true anymore with any certainty."
"Okay, then we just have to worry about a redundant power line having been installed," Tracy says, and points to the kill switch. "This is our target. Assuming communications are going through a geostationary communication satellite, we can cut the power and get the coordinates from the dish position. If it's really BLACK running things, then there shouldn't be any booby-traps in the computers rigged to go off when the signal is lost. Unless Jason Zero was in charge of the infiltration, in which case it'd be best to use an EMP at the same time as cutting power."
"To a large extent," Cadena says, "this depends upon whether we're really dealing with the BLACK - the challenger who always leaves a way to thwart its wicked plans - or whether NEMESIS has read one of those 'Evil Overlord Lists' and taken them to heart."
"If we zap the computers first, or trigger an alert, we'll have half a second before a signal can come back down through the dish - less if the local system is programmed to respond instead," Tracy figures. "If Jason Zero is involved, assume NEMESIS will be better prepared than just what BLACK can do."
Cadena nods, looking to be deep in thought. "I ... hmm. Would Jason Zero be capable of the same programming feats that Mr. Edwards performed while he was trapped in the Diadem?"
"I don't know," Tracy admits. "But he was involved with the replicant people coming through. He could have given them all the instructions they needed. Plus, if I knew the real Jason would opposing me, I'd go all out; I'd put a bomb in the satellite control room. So I don't think we can afford to let the systems in there stay active. EMP first, then cut power, then.. run!"
"That would depend upon what his objectives were here," Cadena says. "Going all out by bombing the satellite control room might be of little purpose if he actually intends for some reason to keep this place more-or-less intact. I'm presently leaning toward 'intact.' Rampant destruction is fairly easy to achieve, and could have been done by now. This complex has been largely obliterated before, after all."
"That's the BLACK's thinking, yes, but not Jason-type thinking," Tracy notes. "I'd rather not take a chance. The satellite dish is a way to back-track them by knowing which satellite they used, so taking it out if they lose control makes sense to me."
"So ... I wish I could keep track of this better. Jason Dragonhand, the BLACK, Sasha, General Irongrip ... they're all working together?" Cadena asks. "I can't help but feel as if there's something I'm missing here. It feels as if we're dealing with at least two opposing factions. There's obviously a lot of planning and coordination involved, but something seems ... off. Working at cross purposes. I can't quite put my ... er ... claw on it."
"I'm not convinced that Sasha is working with them yet," Tracy says. "The General.. I don't know yet. He was working to get these Imperial people in place, but then why quit his position here as Security Chief? See, that doesn't make any sense to me, unless he found out the real plan and decided he didn't want any part of it. But if he did have a change of heart, then why not turn in the infiltrators? He could just have left in order to build up an arsenal for eventual use by the forces of the BLACK.. but then.. aargh!" The girl throws her hands up in the air. "I don't know! They could all have their own agendas."
"That would be suitably chaotic," Cadena says, nodding.
"Which means we have to be chaoticier!" Tracy claims. "Unpredictable!"
"Er ... unpredictable, perhaps, but not misaimed," Cadena emphasizes, looking a little worried, as if he at least has no way of predicting where Tracy is going with this....
"The other problem is Jason himself," Tracy says. "He's going after the portal. If he actually closes it, then we can't send the infiltrators back through it.. and they'll be executed as human replicants."
"In any case, I have one theory in mind that ... hmm. It's flimsy, but I think it might suggest that either Jason Dragonhand does NOT have Mr. Edwards's capabilities, he is not in league with whomever sent the Wild Hunt through portals to get to you, or simply that he's holding back," Cadena adds. "So far, the creatures spilling through those portals have been unstable, low resolution, dissolving in this reality. I think Jason Dragonhand, if he's Mr. Edwards's technical equal, can do better than that."
Cadena stops in mid-monologue, and blinks, as it took him a moment to register what Tracy was saying. "No. They can't. They ... no."
"Yeah, that's the reason I don't link Sasha to him yet," Tracy agrees. "I'm pretty sure she pulled off the trick of making her goons seem stable by using a constant healing spell to renew them moment by moment. That was used last time, by WHITE's champions."
Cadena nods, still looking disturbed. "Exactly."
"Think we can talk Jason into just securing the portal and not closing it off?" Tracy asks. "We need to find out how it can make virtual matter into real - or at least stable - matter."
"It would be worth trying," Cadena admits. "I regret that Brother Cadena would be far more capable of presenting a persuasive case than I can. And, alas, this is not a case where I can just decide to move over and let him take over the controls, as it were." He shudders. "Jason Dragonhand is bitter and angry, I believe, but not without purpose. I just don't know what that purpose is."
Cadena says, "I ... don't know if this is entirely relevant, but I have another theory I am working on. I am trying to reconstruct the events that led to my creation. I have been anxious to find out its implications, and whether or not this capability would be available to our enemies. I believe that the mechanism used to create myself and others like me may still be in place, but only usable under certain conditions that I have not yet ascertained."
"I'm sure he'll be open to the idea, once he realizes it'd mean sentencing all those people to death if the portal is destroyed," Tracy says.
"I hope there is a chance for some sort of compromise," Cadena says. "I can't abide by their deaths. These are people, not things. They are biologically human, stable, and mentally developed. I am horrified by the implications that fully-formed sapient entities can be created on demand ... but once created, it is no fault of their own that someone might have created them for their own ends. The sins of the father should not be visited upon the children."
"I know. And they can't be used as hostages either, because they're just NPCs to the BLACK," Tracy says. "They're made to be expendable."
Cadena nods sadly. "There's something seriously twisted in the world."
Looking the holo display some more, Tracy suggests, "We can keep some security droids here, around the corner of the supply room. That way we can use them as a distraction if need to get any others out of the control room."
"I'm sorry, but is Inari in any danger?" Cadena asks urgently. "Do you know what her status is? I mean, she doesn't pretend to appear to be human, per se, and Jason honestly doesn't appear to be concerned about her. He was almost ... flippant about the nature of her creation."
"I mean," Cadena quickly backpedals. "Of course he's concerned about her. Very much so. But he doesn't seem to be concerned about her being ... what she is ... from a legal point of view, I suppose. Or that anyone else should be. Or would be."
"As far as the authorities are concerned, she's a human that's had extensive bio-morph treatments to make her look the way she does," Tracy says. "Otherwise they'd have to explain her real origins, which is a whole new kettle of fish. She got into the public eye quickly, and is also a sort of liaison to the other Diademites that live at the old park site."
"She probably also has her rights as a corporate entity, through Voya," Tracy supposes.
"What about Miss Summers, then?" Cadena asks. "Genetically speaking, she's not quite human. Did they find a way of working around that? Is that why she has been keeping such a low profile?"
"What do you mean, she's not quite human?" Tracy asks.
Cadena blinks. "Er... Her genetic profile. She was modified. RIU has records of it. Mr. Edwards had created a biological/medical scanning subsystem in order to analyze her physiology before he enacted the 'summoning' modification. Actually, I was just speaking with Mr. Edwards to see if I could obtain a copy, and then perhaps see if Miss Summers could help me analyze the data, since she has far more expertise in that area, and I imagine she's quite conscious of the situation."
"I.. doubt that counts," Tracy says. "Akiko Summers was born human, to human parents, and was human for 20 years before Blake messed with her in VR. I don't think that once you are human, you can legally be considered not human later after contracting a genetic disorder or getting stem-cell therapy or something. Otherwise people who suffer genetic damage from radiation wouldn't be considered human - and that's like every astronaut ever! Nobody would move to a space colony if it meant they wouldn't be considered human anymore."
"That's a very good point," Cadena says, "and that was my original reasoning. It's just that Mr. Edwards's take on it seemed to equate Miss Summers's situation with Inari's and it all ... kind of forced me to reevaluate some of my admittedly shaky theories on the topic. I still need to verify a few things, after all. And, after all, the secondary genetic code is dormant. As long as it's just sitting there, it's really nothing more than garbage data. I'm just complicating things again." He furrows his brow, looking contemplative.
"You do tend to over-think things when you aren't busy," Tracy says. "I wonder if all dogs are mute philosophers now. Anyway, I'm leaning towards spider-bots as our backups. What do you think?"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-04-11_jasontracy.htmlIt's amazing how tired one man can look while he's stressed out and working and that's Jason right now. He's commandeered one of the tables in the quantum lab to work on building some 'assault' gear to deal with the imminent invasion. In the hands of the right person piles of junk do take on a rather ominous appearance and those duct-taped collections of super capacitors and inductive coils are no exception. Now is the odd-looking snorkel device that has a roughly canid shape to it that he's currently working on. He's having to use a small butane torch in bursts to heat and melt plastic together. The origins of the plastic is well, it looks familiar, but hard to place.
It's hard to tell what he's thinking, other than general worry. The way he smacks the current device hard when it isn't working quite the way he wants is also a dead giveaway of agitation.
Zahnrad says, "Cue"
The door to the lab opens slightly, so Tracy can poke her head inside. She tries to gauge Jason's mood, and quietly asks, "Am I interrupting, or could you use a short break?"
"I could use days without catastrophes, but seeing as that isn't going to happen I may as well take a short break," Jason relents. He shuts off the small pocket torch. "You can also use these to make creme brulee," he remarks as he sets the torch down. "But .... that takes skill."
Coming up to the workspace, Tracy points to the duct-taped bundles of capacitors and coils. "The EMP grenades, I presume?" she asks. "When one goes off, will it affect the others or anything else with an ultra-capacitor?"
"It'll disrupt anything that isn't well-shielded against an emf burst, including most ics. You would have to have a a really tight-nit faraday cage to minimize the effect. Not that it means much to you most likely but the basic theory is that within a perfect conductor, no electrical field can exist. Extrapolating from that you'd realize that current only flows on the skin of a wire not in its core an a perfect metal sphere would be electrically neutral in its core and ... well, they shouldn't affect each other, I made sure of that," Jason remarks. "And bear in mind that a high current discharge does generate a lot of heat and will cause things to burst. It's not a major explosion or anything, but I wouldn't want to be within twenty feet of it. You'll be picking shrapnel out of your skin."
"Speaking of shrapnel, would the burst set off any electronic detonators in the area?" Tracy asks next, a bit nervously. "Say the blasting caps in a plastic explosive charge?"
"If it hit just right and with enough force, yes," Jason says.
The girl chews her lower lip for a moment, then says, "Well, I'm planning things based on the assumption that Jason 'Dragonhand' actually masterminded the infiltration and everything, and that he set traps - since that seems like the sort of thing you'd do. So I was going to use the grenade to knock out the computers in the satellite control room before cutting power to the dish, figuring that there'd be a bomb set to go off once the link was broken. Does that make sense?"
"If it were me I would use pressure or thermal sensors to target any organics and then use high voltage discharge system to just electrocute an intruder. Less collateral damage. Plus, there would be a backup dish, as you never bet all your resources on one plan of action," Jason remarks a bit dryly. "The thing is, though, anything we think of is really just a guess without seeing the systems in question or blueprints of all the changes. I can't tell you what he would be thinking. We may share DNA, but we're different people."
"So you don't think you both share the same weaknesses?" Tracy asks.
"Given he's trying to be better than me in all aspects, I would expect him to deliberately try to overcome any weaknesses I have. Which, by the way, I have none," Jason says, "Outside of a questionable sense of humor and a tendency to be brutally honest."
"Oh really?" Tracy asks, one eyebrow raised. "So if he sent you a letter daring you to attack him.. you'd be able to ignore it, right?"
"That's such an obvious trap. Of course I would ignore it. Ignoring it would also annoy him, most likely," Jason says.
"What if you sent him a note that challenged him to prove his power or influence within the Empire of Stars by doing something nobody else could get away with?" the girl asks next. "Would he take the challenge, to prove himself?"
"How would I know? I have no idea what he has been up to in four years outside of bedding Inari," Jason remarks, his own brow raised now.
"Because not backing down from a challenge seems a fundamental part of you," Tracy points out. "And if you were like that at that age, then he probably is too. It would be giving him a chance to show off, while also letting you know the extent of his influence."
"You're forgetting something. When have I ever shown off?" Jason asks. "I work behind the scenes."
"It's not about showing off in public, it's about showing off to the only person that he needs to impress," Tracy says, and taps Jason in the middle of his chest.
Jason looks down. "And why does he have to impress me?" he asks when he looks up.
"Because he's out to beat you," Tracy says. "And to make your defeat mean more, he needs to show you that he's already achieved more, has more power, and so on to make you feel inadequate before his eventual victory."
"That would mean I would have to care about power and appearance. I live in the slums. I could afford a home in the spires. So ... eh," Jason remarks and shrugs. "I choose to not be more. So him being more means ... well, squat."
Tracy sighs. "Look, this isn't about how you feel, it's about how he feels," she says. "Just.. humor me? I'm worried about all those Imperial plants that have been rounded up. What's going to happen to them? Are they prisoners of war, with rights, or replicants with none? If we send them back, will they just be executed, or would Jason Dragonhand actually have enough sympathy for them to try and protect them if we challenged him to?"
"He wouldn't care, Tracy. Look, I worked for a brief period with the Government doing, well ... the dirty side of cyber warfare. Worked being, well, I had to to stay out of jail for a couple years and have my records sealed. When you operate from a detached position people are just bits of data. You rig a program with a trap that causes an enemies plant to explode, do you morn those killed? Or is it just a number?" Jason says as he sighs and rubs his forehead. "Unless they retained some intrinsic value, it's just componentry to sacrifice. As for what will happen to the replicas here, they would likely be put to death. If they went back, they would likely be put to death for failure. They don't have much of a future, either way."
"He's the one who gives them their orders though," Tracy says, sounding a bit desperate. "He knows them; has known them for years. If there's even a slight chance.." She stops and shakes her head. "Never mind. If I give you a letter to send through the portal before you destroy it, will you do that much for me?"
"Tracy, he knows of them. That is not the same as knowing them. It's a big distinction. It's why officers in the military do not fraternize with the troops. You have to be able to send someone to their death," Jason says, pausing there to rubs over his eyelids. "I know this isn't what you want to hear. I know you want to believe there are heroes in the world that good can win, and all that. The reality of it is there isn't, and bad things happen to good people. No, it isn't fair, but life isn't fair. Tear down an atom and show the the 'fairness' particle? You can't, it doesn't exist. It's something I learned the day I watched the drunk son of some rich family get away with killing my parents. A little money here and there, and the police lost the evidence of his DUI. A little campaign gift to the judge and the prosecutor didn't have a chance. You're asking me to try and change the future of these people; people who invaded our world. You're asking me to play God with another reality
somehow. I, frankly, don't know if I can."
"I was only asking you to be a human being," Tracy says, sounding defeated and looking away. "Will you take my letter, just in case? You don't think it'd mean anything anyway, so what's the risk? That way if I get blown up trying to shut down the Q-Link, I'll at least be able to pretend I tried to fight injustice."
"There are better ways that hoping someone cloned from me would save them out of bravado or some perceived challenge, Tracy," Jason says. "I want you to understand the people we are up against. We can't appeal to them directly with much hope. We can't stand out in front like a knight on a crusade, that just makes us a meat shield. We have to work behind the scenes. If you want to save them find out if they want to be saved. For those who want asylum, their main issue is all the similarity isn't it? Being from an alternate reality isn't the crime, look at Inari as an example. Instead of wasting power on trying to send a letter through, why not use it to create a destablized zone and, well, use the character designer routines to randomize their appearances so they do become unique in feature. No one could claim they were replicants then. Then they can claim asylum from an oppressive government." There's another pause, then he finishes with, "I'm human, Tracy. I've just ... been on the beating
end enough to know the stark realities of our society."
"... kzzrt. Bzzzt. Jason, are you there?" It's Inari's voice on the communicator.
"Could you rig up.." Tracy starts to ask, only to stop the moment Inari's voice comes over the comm.
"Yes, I'm here. I think I've ruined every positive image Tracy ever had of me in the past ten minutes. So, if you tell me we're sitting on a nuclear bomb, I wouldn't be terribly surprised. What's your status?" Jason asks in the comm.
"Tracy had positive images of you? It's about time you got rid of them," Inari kids. "Been to Hell and back. It's overrated. Old Imperial base under about a mile of concrete but it looks like it's been decommissioned for years. I was looking through the files when I got your message about the Q-link, but there was a lot of static. What's going on?"
"We have some control back, but the old satellite system is still active and communicating with some remote location through one of the Dantech com satellites. But then almost all communication is routed through those. More concerning is the Q-Link itself is going crazy. One of the ADs, your friend, BLACK, has taken control if it and is doing who knows what. I've got to shut it down somehow. Tracy volunteered to handle the disabling of the sat link."
Jason explains.
Inari responds, "That can't be good. Q-Core level's still full of security robots doing that weird stare at each others thing. Feels like I'm making my way through invisible laser beams, if I trip one, all Hell will break loose, or something. Don't get killed without me, okay, Jason?"
"Tracy may already be plotting a way to hit me with friendly fire," Jason jokes lamely, "But I'll do my best to live long enough. I'm afraid if I did get killed without you, you'd just find a way to get me back so you could kill me again."
"That's a promise," the vixen's voice replies. "Anything else before I get on with getting up there?"
"Inari," Tracy asks, "if we survive this and retake the building, will you help me interrogate someone?"
Jason's brow arches. "Who do you want to put in thumbscrews, Tracy?" he asks.
"I don't want to use thumbscrews," Tracy says. "Just intimidation. And it's my ex, Mark. If he's still in custody here, I want to squeeze him for everything he knows about 'Artemis' of the Wild Hunt."
Inari doesn't say anything for a bit but it's easy to imagine her raising her eyebrow at the intercom. "What makes you think I'm an interrogation specialist? Just because I was the designated bad guy for Blake and his buddies doesn't mean I was good at getting information from his 'heroes'."
"You'll make a good chaperone to make sure I don't hurt him too much then," Tracy says.
Inari's voice: "Jason. Poke Tracy for me please?"
"You do still have sharp claws, teeth, and you can do illusions," Jason points out as he grabs a ruler and dutifully pokes Tracy in the back with it.
Tracy refuses to respond to the poke.
"And you'll let me get away with more than Cadena would," the teenager adds.
"I also remember certain rumors that you once plotted ways to kill me, Inari," Jason remarks into the comm. "You can be scary..."
"Scary I can do. Chaperoning... Are you seriously asking me to chaperone you? The girl who threw her latest but one boyfriend out of an aircar?" Inari clicks her tongue. "And this bit about it being your ex, you know that is so soap opera."
"I have to accept responsibility for starting the whole throwing someone out of an air car," Jason admits.
"I don't watch soap operas," Tracy notes. "But he tried to kidnap me, for money. Maybe he realizes now that he's going to jail. Anyway.. that's for later. Jason, show me how to set the fuses on the grenades."
Inari's voice, in a low tone. "If we don't have anything more pressing, sure... But I reserve the right to kill him if he creeps me out."
"If we somehow survive this, Inari, I promise you I can find something more pressing and interesting than killing a punk. If you need anything more, just open the comm, I'll have mine active," Jason promises.
"It's a date," Inari's voice responds. The comm connection clicks off.
"They're simple to activate. They work just like the old ones, you pull a pin out that connects two contacts and after ten seconds, the relay snaps closed and boom," Jason explains, "Even your dog could do it." He taps his fingers on the table for a moment, then adds, "And Tracy ... for what it is worth, I wish I still saw the world the way you do. I wish there were heroes too."
"Ten seconds?" Tracy asks. "Can you rig one of them for like, five minutes? And while you did your best to stomp on my ideals.. you did also tell me how to actually save those people - not by depending on human kindness, but on human saving-my-assedness. I've got a plan."
"Er, with five minutes someone could just move it," Jason points out.
"I plan on rolling it into the center of the room - on top of the false ceiling. I'll want time to get out of blast range, in case it does set off an explosive," Tracy explains. "I suppose I could just tie a line to the pin though.."
"You watch too much TV," Jason mutters, "A string never actually works. So much for making her face reality..."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-04-27-closing-the-door.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 1:30 PM Eastern
Tracy and Cadena sneak with Jason through the basement corridors of the Avatars LLC 'Vanirheim' building. Emergency red lights rotate overhead at every intersection, casting an ominous hue over their shoulders and faces as they come up on the spur they want, marked 'SATELLITE LINK ACCESS - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY'. To the left are some nondescript storage rooms full of obsolete machinery and equipment; ahead is a supply closet providing easy access to replacement parts for the periodic visits by maintenance personnel. A thin sheen of dust covers the floor, proof that their visits aren't frequent.
The corridor doglegs around the supply closet and the bathrooms behind it, providing handy cover against the security camera monitoring the entrance. The keypad on the supply closet door yields quickly to Tracy's lockpicks, giving them access to the interior where they can begin clearing a space to cut through to the bathroom. The air ventilation duct up in the wall is too small for a human, but RIU might be able to sneak through and give them some reconnaissance data...
"Maybe we could just contact the government to just nuke the building," Jason suggests as he peers at the piles of old junk. "and I thought I collected random stuff. They really should just recycle this stuff."
"Want to have RIU take a peek at the control room?" Tracy asks quietly as she begins to empty one of the shelves blocking the wall.
RIU perches on Jason's head as he surveys the junk. "Eep?" it says as it hears its name.
"You heard the crazy girl, she wants you to scout in the ducts and relay back to me what is going on ahead," Jason tells the little dragon, then even gives him a nudge. "And you should get sued to it, women are bossy."
RIU squeaks and bats a bit at Jason's nudging! Then hovers up into the air with a tiny sound of wings, making its way into the air vent system (once he removes the vent cover for it).
"They had an old pizza oven, why does this not surprise me?" Jason mutters as he carefully moves the old oven (after thinking ahead and putting a dap of oil on its wheels to avoid squeaking).
Cadena carefully assists Tracy in moving the equipment around quietly, using his mouth as an extra "hand," despite the accumulation of dust. In between items, he looks as if he's trying (unsuccessfully) to scour the taste of dust out of his mouth.
RIU peeps through the vent. From the inside, it should be the work of a few seconds to pop the grill open with a few selected swipe. It is looking over the top of one of the server racks that wall the room.
The Satellite Comm Station is dark save for the emergency lights - no point in wasting the electricity if no one's using it. Besides the red flashers which provide enough illumination to find the light switch, the only light comes from the monitors and equipment indicators around the room. Most of the monitors display administrivia. One monitor flashes the message, "SECURE ACCESS - ZEUS WEATHER ADMINISTRATION PROGRAM SATELLITE 2 - UPLINK IN PROGRESS." Another reads, "INCOMING CALL - PRIORITY ACCESS. STANDING BY."
Once some of the junk has been cleared, Tracy says, "The sinks should be on the other side, so I think it'd be easiest to cut through low to the ground, between the plumbing."
Cadena whispers, "Aren't there devices for checking the wall to find supports and such behind it? Cutting through a power line or water line could be a bad thing."
"You know ... it might have been easier to just blow the gimbals on the dish itself," Jason remarks quietly. "And ... it's linking to Zeus. This does not surprise me. I'd better see if I can intercept what data is coming in and out ... and oh, a call. Give me a moment."
The display flickers. "INCOMING CALL IN PROGRESS - SECURITY OVERRIDE - MONITORING ACTIVE."
"I was just going to cut through the wall material, not past it," Tracy says, then starts raiding Jason's toolkit for the various power and stud finding tools.
Andrei's face appears on Cadena's collar display, mid-rant. "-outrage! You know as well as I do that the program isn't ready to launch for another three weeks! Activating the pylons prematurely could completely compromise ATLAS's dataset."
"Hey, a girl can only go through my toolbox after the second date," Jason complains, though he's too distracted to do much about it.
Tracy jumps at the sudden display and rant, and bangs her head on a shelf.
The BLACK's voice responds, an eerie chorus of voices, female, male, old and young, each speaking one phrase, then followed by the next voice. "Timetables lie. People lie. ATLAS will be ready far sooner than you claimed. An obvious ruse to seize the rewards for yourself. Is betrayal so unexpected by a traitor?"
A soft feminine voice, singsong-fashion, says from the other wall, "Is someone there?" It sounds robotic.
Jason visibly twitches. He really wants to interject in the conversation. "Andrei..." he growls.
"Volume control," Tracy whispers urgently to Cadena.
Cadena is momentarily taken aback, not quite registering what in the world is going on, or why, then he slaps the mute.
Andrei's voice is now barely more than a whisper. "The deal was that ATLAS was to be developed completely free of outside influences! Starting him before he's completely absorbed the initial dataset would contaminate his metousiosis of Prime, and utterly compromise our mission!" Andrei pounds his fist against the desk (silently) for emphasis as he leans toward the camera.
Tracy listens for the robot voice again and stares at the door to the supply room.
"All right, that's it. They've both annoyed me. If they want to play, lets play. Time to make this little game official," Jason growls as he plops himself down on the floor. His eyes close and he crosses his arms across his chest.
Cadena still not understanding why in the world there's something playing on his collar, and why it won't mute, shuts the K-9 Storm Collar off completely.
The voice pauses. "Are you still there?"
click The call ends.
The white dog looks like he's on the verge of ripping his collar off and smashing it, if not for the call ending. He's visibly rattled. He casts a lost look to Tracy, but says nothing.
"Jason needs to remember to give some warning about using your collar like that," Tracy whispers, and uses an ultrasound device to map out a safe cutting area. "Now, how does this information affect our plan? Do you want to try and hack that satellite now, Jason?"
"Two little traitors, all in a row. One who sacrifices people for his own means, be it betray or outright mutilation. Your strategies never change, Andrei. And BLACK, dear, dear BLACK. Corruption is your programming. You act like you are such a God, but the reality of it all is you're just playing out what you were programmed to do. You are nothing more than an overly advanced toaster, for all your bluster and demands. Both of you, so limited in scope and strategy. But ... you still want to play, don't you? Fine, we'll play. This is officially game on, dear friends. Lets see how well either of you deal with nothing more than a ghost in the machine. And ... it's my move now. I'll see you on the board ... but will you see me?" Jason says in a disturbingly eerie and detached voice from where he sits cross-legged on the floor. "Snip snip."
Cadena, after taking a few more breaths, gingerly switches his collar back on, immediately setting every option he can find for speaker mute, volume off, speaker disabled, projection range minimum, projection brightness minimum, projector disabled, and so forth. He doesn't even want it on "vibrate."
The feminine voice says quietly, "No target. Nap time."
Seen only by RIU, the monitor tracking the incoming call now reads, "INCOMING CALL - TERMINATED BY OPERATOR."
"Okay, Jason has been sniffing epoxy or something," Tracy whispers. Once it's clear that the guard robot isn't going to investigate further, she powers on her vibroblade and starts cutting a section of the wall.
Faintly visible, with no accompanying noises or vibration, a message indicator appears on Cadena's collar.
"Synecdoche incoming in our area. Area has begun destabilizing at a quantum level. We don't have much time. We need to either destroy the link in the next couple of minutes, or leave," Jason remarks as his eyes snap open.
Cadena puts his ear up against the wall (but not where he's in danger of getting in the way of the cutting), trying to listen for any hints of activity or environmental details on the other side.
"What, here?" Tracy asks as she cuts. "Damn.. can RIU handle one of the grenades? Or the power switch.. it's near the vent at the far side of the room." She carefully pulls away the wall section.
"RIU? Probably, I can call him back," Jason says.
As she turns to set the wall-section aside, Tracy notices a blinking light on Cadena's collar. "You've got a message," she whispers to Cadena. "Maybe it's from mom.."
Cadena, apparently ignoring matters of incoming messages, whispers to Tracy, "Something's happening in the satellite link room. I can hear the motors of the turret cameras in the room ... but also an engine powering up. It sounds like some sort of ... ship's engine? But ... there's nothing like that around here. Something's wrong!"
"Like I said, synecdoche," Jason says as he gets back to his feet. "RIU, visual feed, what is going on?" he thinks to the dragon. "And can you carry a grenade back and throw it in?"
Cadena deploys his heads-up display goggles to check the message, rather than broadcasting it to the room. He reads it aloud, loosely mimicking HEL's tone. "Quantum instability levels are rising in your vicinity. Recommend immediate evacuation."
RIU scrambles back to the air vent near Jason and holds out his claws for the grenade.
"Damit," Jason growls, "We're losing." He unhooks one of the grenades from his belt and hands it up to the little dragon. "Pull pin, throw, and run. You'll have 10 seconds before it detonates. Light up the control room," he instructs RIU.
"So.. is BLACK trying to bypass the link with a direct connection somehow?" Tracy asks, and finishes pulling out the wall piece. "Cadena, send a signal to our backup bots to come and secure the corridor, in case our communications get disrupted."
RIU beeps agreement! Then shinnies into the ventilation duct with the grenade.
"He's taking over the so-called weather system," Jason says. "We're losing. But I don't intend to go down without leaving a big scar."
The bathroom is dark and empty, and smells a bit dusty as if it hasn't been cleaned in, well, weeks.
Cadena looked as if he was braced to go through the hole as soon as the blocking piece was out of the way, but he nods at Tracy and instead drops back to use his goggles and a "virtual" interface to send the message. "This synecdoche business ... if there's such a thing forming here, wouldn't we need to physically alter the environment to disrupt that?" he whispers, though at the moment he can't really see if there's anyone around him to hear him.
Three identical stalls are in the bathroom, each of them with their doors open enough to reveal the toilets inside. Over the hole is one of the sinks, and a closed door with a mirror on the inside would open out onto the entrance. With good timing, one might be able to run from the door to under the entrance camera.
"The grenades do cause an explosion," Tracy notes. "But we need to get the power switch to the dish too, it's on the back wall," she explains as she crawls through into the bathroom.
A message comes back from GANGLOT, serving as HEL's intermediary. Acknowledged. Strike team Epsilon moving in to secure satellite com corridor.
Cadena dutifully passes the message along, falling into character as GANGLOT as best he can manage to repeat it to Tracy. He then switches and asks, "Do I follow you, or remain here? What are my orders?"
RIU, back in the vent overlooking the server room, peers at the vent cover and into the room. The air is shimmering, like everything's being seen through intense heat, but it feels as cool as ever. Tiny crackles of blue electricity creep up the center bunch of cables.
"Hurry, RIU," Jason urges.
"Follow me as soon as you get confirmation that the robots are coming," Tracy replies, and heads for the door to listen for movement. Is the robot unaware of what's happening in the control room, she wonders.
The other monitor continues to flash the message, "SECURE ACCESS - ZEUS WEATHER ADMINISTRATION PROGRAM SATELLITE 2 - UPLINK IN PROGRESS." Text beneath that indicates, "NETWORK SECURITY DETECTED. PROGRESS: 3/6 (50%)"
RIU extends the claws on one of its foot-hands. pop! It slices through the vent cover, then flings the grenade in toward the center.
Cadena sends a query to GANGLOT on the location of the robots and ETA, bracing himself to leap through as soon as he's got confirmation. He switches the goggles to passive heads-up display, so he can better see what's going on without imaginary data lines dangling all around him.
The inside turret beeps. "Is someone there?" it says in the same dulcet sing-song female voice as the outside one.
Cadena, in his best GANGLOT voice, says, "Robots en route. ETA, 30 seconds." He clears his display and bounds through the hole after Tracy.
"I should have predicted this. This is my fault," Jason thinks to himself as he crawls after Cadena into the bathroom as well. "I could have stopped this."
Standing ready at the bathroom door, Tracy puts one hand on the handle and waits until she can hear the grenade detonate.
RIU scrambles back through the air vent! Hot air chases it down and out into the storage closet as the grenade explodes in a fiery corruscation of bright blue electrical discharge. The monitors adjacent to the control bundle flicker and die, screens exploding outward to throw shrapnel across the floor.
"I hope that worked," Jason worries, uncertain that it actually would.
Cadena looks confused to Jason. "What do you mean, what do I want to do? I'm following you and Tracy."
"I didn't say anything to you," Jason notes.
The inside turret emits, voice going all squeaky, "Malfunctioning! Critical error!" The outside turret wakes up, motors audibly clicking. "Who's there?"
Tracy draws her taser, and whispers to the others, "The turret out there is wonky, should I tase it or use another grenade?"
Cadena blinks. "Sensory channel error. Mr. Edwards's voice heard in the satellite room. 'Intrusion Attempt Stopped,'" he says in a bad imitation of Jason's voice. Then he switches accents, to something that sounds vaguely like Andrei. "'Best to make sure. Continue with TROJAN HORSE.'" He switches accents again, to something vaguely like GANGLOT. "ETA 20 seconds."
"I'm not sure a taser would do anything to it. I would ... dammit, there's my counterpart," Jason growls and resists the urge to punch the floor. "Grenade it, Tracy."
RIU shoops up onto Jason's shoulders! It looks visibly disturbed, blue lightning crackling over the spines that lend it a Chinese dragon's character.
Tracy pulls a pin, counts to 6, and then yanks the door open enough to toss the grenade through and slams it closed afterward.
With expert timing, Tracy manages to open the door just when the camera's at its farthest angle and rolls the grenade out, then shuts it again before the explosion. BWOOMF! Light flashes beneath the door.
The outside turret putters to a stop. "Shutting... down..."
"Okay, let's go!" Tracy says, opening the door and hurrying to security door to the control room - and hoping the lock is disengaged already.
"You don't have to tell me twice," Jason agrees and follows after Tracy.
"New data!" Cadena barks. "Previously undetected physical presence in satellite room!"
In the corridor to the south, they can hear the security robots tromping up. Big, loud and noisy, they would have definitely been a hindrance to sneakiness.
"Then that physical presence will get a physical bullet in the head," Jason barks back as he draws his gun and flicks the ammo to armor piercing.
Cadena dashes out, bracing himself at the security door, and putting his ear to it in an attempt to hear more.
"Goodbye, BLACK," Cadena says, in his "attempted Jason voice" again. "I can't say I'll miss you. Shutting down ALPHA GATE now." Then, "tick-tick-tick-tick-tick...."
"The hell?" Jason remarks, looking extremely confused.
Tracy jimmies the mechanical lock open, just as she hears Cadena's narration. "Tick-tick..? Did someone just set a bomb in there? And was it Dragonhand?" She pushes the door open to see!
Cadena falls forward as the door opens.
In the darkened room, it's easy to see the fading light of a portal, and through it, a romo that looks like the armory of an old warship... The Ozymandias. It looks as if someone's added a terminal in there, and sitting behind it is the other Jason, wearing a pirate captain's outfit with an eyepatch. The portal shimmers, becoming unreal, just a mirage. The light from the corridor illuminates a black briefcase resting at the base of the control lines, with orange markings reading 'FAE' and 'FOR INDUSTRIAL USE ONLY'. A box where the handle should be counts down seconds. It presently reads 0:47.00.
"Damn, missed him!" Tracy wails, one hand resting on the butt of her taser. "Uh.. should we run now?"
Jason brings his gun up and targets through the portal, trying to take aim at the back of the other Jason's head. He flicks the safety off, then pulls the trigger.
The other Jason's eyes widen as he sees the original Jason lining up a gun. He dives as the bullet... smashes into the far wall of the satellite comm station.
Cadena barks, "GANGLOT! Fuel-Air-Explosive on my position! Evacuate now!" He runs toward the bomb.
The portal's afterimage wavers and then fades entirely.
"Don't be crazy, Cadena, I'll try to disarm it," Jason yells as he charges after the dog. He'll put his gun away later!
"That.. that's big!" Tracy notes at the mention of 'fuel-air-explosive'. She immediately looks to the hatch in the far corner of the room. Can it be opened in 30 seconds, she wonders.
Running and vaulting over equipment, Tracy heads for the hatch. "I'm going to open the hatch, hand me the bomb if you can't disarm it, or else we can use it to escape!" she tells the others.
Jason skids to a halt nest to the bomb. He puts his gun away and starts digging through his toolkit. "On it!" he says, trying to sound calm ... which he is far from. "Betrayals on top of betrayals. My clone is working for Andrei," he grumbles.
The security hatch is heavy; there's a wheel underneath that responds sluggishly to Tracy.
"Oh come on," Tracy groans as she strains to turn the hatch wheel. "Don't they ever oil anything?"
Jason's hands are incredibly steady as he works over the container seals. Nuts fall to the floor in a clatter, pins pop, and rivet heads break. Soon the casing is off the bomb. Jason pops his knuckles as he peers at the mess of wiring. "I need to disconnect the detonator," he muses and starts panic-tracing lines.
The detonator ticks down slowly. Two robots approach the entrance. "Warning! An explosive has been detected in this room," one announces. "Your immediate evacuation is recommended."
Cadena, after growling at the vanished portal (thwarting any plans to simply grab the suitcase and leap through with it) apparently sees that he's unlikely to be of much use defusing the bomb. He clambers up on top of a server cabinet, tentatively checking to see if he might be able to lend help to Tracy in forcing the hatch open.
The innards of the bomb look much more complicated than Jason would expect of a standard fuel-air explosive -- but then, his counterpart engineered it. Several times he moves to cut a line, then realizes it's a decoy that would have set it off prematurely...
Then just as the hatch pops open, admitting fresh air - it's still daylight outside, amazingly - Jason spots the critical link. snip The detonator clicks off.
"Is it dead?" Tracy calls from the hatch. "I'll feel better if we toss it outside. Wouldn't you build in a backup detonator if the first one failed?"
Jason lifts the detonator out. "It's off ... but I don't trust it. Tracy, please set this ... right, " he says and quickly sets the detonator side. He double-checks there are no backups, too.
Cadena, seeing that his master seems to have the hatch well in hand, and after giving an approving nod to her superior prowess at such things, leaps back down off the server, and dashes back over to the area where the portal was last. He sniffs around, ears swiveling, eyes scanning.
Tracy hurries back down to collect the disarmed bomb, so she can carry it up through the hatch and dump it outside for the disposal-bots to handle.
The spider-robots move into the room to take up station. "Warning! Handling explosive devices should only be attempted by authorized bomb disposal teams," one cautions sternly.
Jason, in a fit of ludditism, marches over to the pain satellite link and ensures that everything is dead by unceremoniously cutting the physical connection. "The Q-Core is a mass of instability and that is where Inari is," Jason tells the others. "I'm going there now. You don't have to follow." He then heads towards the door.
"Master," Cadena barks, "critical levels of quantum instability have been detected in the Quantum Link Facility. That is some distance to the east of us. If you have this in hand, may I ask permission to head there to provide assistance? I have no substantiation, but worry this may be a decoy. I doubt Mr. Edwards is the sort to leave a bomb with an obvious, visible countdown timer, unless he wanted someone to notice it."
"Okay, here," Tracy says, offering the bomb to the robot in passing, as she follows Jason. "We can all go!"
Cadena doesn't wait a moment more, and dashes out the door.
The robot peers down at the bomb. "Thank you, citizen."
"Why do they always have to sound so weird," Tracy mutters. "I mean, citizen?"
Jason checks the ammo level on his gun as he heads down the corridor. "There are multiple sides, all competing with each other," he thinks. "The only thing they all have in common is they want us dead."
As the team arrives at the nearest door to the Q-Link facility, Inari is nowhere in sight. The robot on duty greets them in emotionless tones. "You are authorized to proceed. Warning! Quantum instability levels have exceeded safe levels. By entering, you acknowledge that we are in no way responsible for any damage you should incur to your person or your mental health." It clicks. "Pardon me. GANGLOT has instructed me to wish you good luck. Strike teams have been assembled and are ready to enter at your command."
The door to the Q-Link opens on a setting not at all what they had expected. The Q-Link chamber has been ripped apart, as if by a giant's hand. The nearby quarter of the room opens onto a yawning chasm of infinite space, into which the other fragments of the room hang suspended. Directly ahead, threatening to swallow up the nearby Q-Probe display and operator terminal, is a swirling white vortex of energies within which appear visions of other worlds. The floor doesn't actually end at the vortex; instead, it seems to continue into the vortex as if space were being warped around a black hole.
If one were to somehow be able to swim through the white vortex to the other side, it might be possible to reach the northwest quarter of the room, which appears a full floor higher even though it should be at the same level. Up there, an Avatars LLC security guard stands next to two familiar faces - Mark Berkowitz and Mike Dexter. All three look uncertain which way to go.
Another vortex of energy, green in color, bridges the gap to the northeast quarter, where workers and several strangely armored guards are working furiously on the controls behind them, and a final whirlpool of black energies obstructs passage to the southeast quarter, impossibly high in the air to reach, unless one had the ability to fly... And flying in the heavily fractured-seeming space looks like a bad idea. That platform overlooks the rest of the room, giving the apparent mage at the top a commanding view. He stands next to a massive spider which appears to be keeping Chaz Burgundy and Monica under its eight-eyed scrutiny.
This last quarter adjoins what should have been the Quantum Core. Instead, there's a gargantuan red sphere of energy surrounded by thick oily black shells of armor, being fed by a beam from some giant spike of metal extending right through the northern vortex, easily wide enough to walk on. Eight luridly glowing crystals surround the sphere. If this setup bears any resemblance at all to the original Q-Core, that's where the most critical modifications were made, changing the scanners from a passive mode to one able to subtly modulate the quantum waveform of this entire vicinity.
A scientist nearby, a 'Dr. Joseph Locksley' according to his badge, gibbers as he shrinks away from the spectacle of the quantum vortex. "It's impossible... We're standing on the brink of the Metaverse! Dr. Romanov was right!"
"And you let him do whatever he wanted, didn't you? Jason remarks rather dryly as he heads towards the scientist. "Tell us everything, right now. Refuse and our dog will eat your feet."
"W-w-what do you mean?" The scientist registers the arrival of the new people with distracted fear. "He's never set foot here!"
"Master, cautionary advisement," Cadena says, his eyes looking glazed as he surveys the chaos. "This unit may experience disruptions in personality profile, due to ambiguous contextual information."
"You just mentioned his name," Jason points out. "Andrei Romanov, the world's greatest living bastard. Start talking. What do you know?" Jason't tone borders on the edge of annoyed, to outright angry.
"You and the rest of us," Tracy comments back to Cadena, as she looks around.. finally noticing Mark and Mike on the next 'level' near the gray vortex.
Cadena trots over to the scientist, still with a lost look in his eyes.
Tracy goes to the terminal near the edge of the white vortex, to see if it's operating or not.
After a bit, Jason worms the story out - while it's true Romanov's never been here, Dr. Locksley did correspond with him as a 'fellow seeker of truth'. The community of scientists that even knows about synecdoches is a very small one, and while Jason is one of those who knows about synecdoches, he's not exactly working professionally as one. "No offense of course," the scientist babbles. "But, it makes things so much easier when you can talk to someone who gets it."
"Are we seeing three separate synechdoches here?" Tracy asks. "One for each.. AD?"
"You're lucky you don't 'get' a bullet in the head," Jason says as his eyes narrow. "These little experiments kill people. That's the truth you're seeking, how to kill, mutilate, and otherwise harm others. Idiots. We have to shut this down. Where are the main controls?"
Dr. Locksley explains, "Dr. Romanov had this interesting theory... That our universe was actually a bubble held inside a greater universe. The Metaverse! A greater universe in which all possible universes that could ever be, are. But not all of them are, you see. It's the observer phenomenon. Phlogistons. Motes of consciousness that enable universes to come into being, creating inflationary forces. I shared some of our findings with him, actually, some of the data from Dr. Blake Forrester. Shame what happened to him, he was a great man. He could have gone far." He's babbling, until Jason steers him back on track.
While the humans are talking, Cadena seems to snap out of his daze enough to notice himself and his goggles. He calls up his virtual interface (not the projected holographic one, but just the one he can "see" through his goggles) and adjusts the notification priorities so that he won't be left unaware of any incoming messages again ... but he still doesn't want everything appearing for everyone around him to see, or any buzzers going off to call attention to himself.
The terminal near Tracy seems to be displaying a strange set of buildings floating in midair, all tied together with lines.
And at the mention of Blake, the scientist does find the barrel of a gun pressed against his forehead. "Blake was an evil, manipulative, bastard who tortured others for his own amusement. He effectively mind-raped people, so don't you dare go around defending him and espousing how wonderful he was," Jason actually snaps. "You have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to him. You never saw what he did to others, I did. And now you gave it all to someone worse, Andrei." Jason's jaw rolls and though his hand is visibly shaking, he lowers the gun. "I'm not going to become a murderer for you, you're not worth it."
"I think this is what's on the other side, maybe," Tracy notes, trying to compare the distances and placement of the displayed buildings with the vortex 'platforms' that have replaced the Q-Link.
As Jason gets Locksley's attention with the gun, the scientist looks around the room bewilderedly. "They're... You'd have to shut off the injectors, but if the synecdoche reaction's gone self-stabilizing, then you'd have to deactivate the scanner grid as well!" He points vaguely toward the northeast, toward the green vortex where some massive piece of machinery pierces through it from an otherworldly source to funnel light into the reactor core, then to the east, where the reactor core itself floats on a high and apparently inaccessible platform, surrounded by crystal pillars similar to those the WHITE used.
Cadena snaps out of his distraction when he sees Jason's display with the gun, looking uncertainly between Jason, Tracy, and the scientist.
"Cadena, are you still carrying the duct tape?" Jason asks curtly.
"That is correct," Cadena answers.
There're too many buildings to correspond to platforms, and of entirely different designs. Several floating skyscrapers, some circus tents, an entire medieval castle... Whomever built this display, if it corresponded to actuality, must have been a demented architect.
"Good. We're going to tape up this guy before he gets any ideas about making himself the next God of a Universe, just like Blake wanted to become," Jason says as he holsters his gun.
"Doctor, why are Mike Dexter and Mark Berkowitz in here?" Tracy asks. "And Dr. Burgundy too!"
"Them? The guard brought them in about half an hour ago," the scientist says, eying Jason warily at the mention of duct tape. "And then all those workers came in as well. I assumed they were working double-time to fix this... This RIFT into the METAVERSE. But it's obvious they've failed."
"He is an employee of Avatars LLC," Cadena says weakly. He seems to be distracted by the buildings.
"Fix it? Are you really that stupid? They wanted to create it," Jason growls.
"To create it?! But that's insane! There's no way we could survive unprotected exposure to the structure of raw universe-spacetime!" the scientist says with a gasp.
"They don't care about your survival. You are completely blind," Jason says. "Tracy, Cadena, make sure Doctor Brilliance here can't cause us problems or help out the others. Unless you absolutely trust he won't backstab all of us in his pursuit of this, I suggest duct taping him to a chair." Jason now heads towards the white space-warp.
Cadena looks to Tracy. "Master, I must inform you, I am concerned about the display on the screen. I know that place."
"Tell us about it, Cadena," Tracy says as she takes the duct tape and asks Dr. Locksley to have a seat.
"Is that necessary, master?" Cadena asks. "He is an employee of Avatars LLC. He has posed no threat to you."
"I don't know who to trust, so I'm listening to Jason," Tracy says. "Tell us about those structures. Where have you seen them before?"
The scientist looks reluctant to get duct-taped. "Miss, I give you my word of honor that I won't, ah, cause you problems or help 'the others'. In truth, I'd rather simply leave the way you came in... The other entries being rather, um, inaccessible."
"It's the virtual playground of my previous master," Cadena says. "She wanted to be an architect when she grew up, like her grandfather. This is the place where we built ... though admittedly, we mostly just followed the instructions and assembled kits that she downloaded."
"Tell us how to shut down the injectors first," Tracy tells the scientist.. then turns and blinks in surprise at Cadena. "It's a private V-scape? But why?" she asks, getting a horrified look on her face. "Oh.."
"If the injectors are still in there..." The scientist gestures toward the spot where the green vortex has almost completely consumed the primary injector grid. "There's an emergency shutdown unit on the back of the primary accelerator unit. You can't miss it, but you'll have to have two people throw the switches, one on each side. To prevent accidents, don't you know."
The white dog, while he narrates, keeps looking nervously, pleadingly up to Tracy, although glancing occasionally at the scientist. "This shouldn't be here. This is not a massively-multiplayer environment. It only exists in two places. Her mother kept it as a private virtual shrine. The tower in the center is her ... masterpiece. It's where we lived. Virtually." Cadena shudders. "It also exists in my head. And ... there is where I am. We are. She is. No, I know that doesn't make any sense."
"Penny is behind it all," Tracy says quietly. "All of this.. she's trying to bring her daughter back, somehow. I think."
"Please don't endanger this man by apprehending him here," Cadena says. "This place is unstable. The borders are unlikely to stay in this position for long. He will be in danger here."
"Yeah, okay," Tracy says, dropping the duct tape a bit distractedly. She watches Jason head for the white vortex.. and moves towards it herself. "I wonder.."
Cadena says frantically, "I don't know the rules here! Mrs. Arcadia may have nothing to do with it. It might be the fault of ... another one of me?" He casts a quick look to the scientist over his shoulder, and then glances meaningfully toward the exit.
Dr. Locksley babbles his thanks to Tracy, and heads for the exit. You hear the voice of the security robot behind it. "Good afternoon, Dr. Locksley. Please accept our escort to the bomb shelter facility where we are presently evacuating all Avatars LLC personnel in case of a catastrophic event."
Jason has grown quiet. He now just stands at the edge of the rift into the 'white' realm. He's rubbing his forehead, looking pained, frustrated, and somehow defeated all at once. "We have to do something. Well, I do. The both of you can go and take the scientist with you," he says. "And if I don't make it out Tracy, I leave Kimon to you. She's a red-8 system and she has been coded to transfer ownership on my death." The hacker then steps forward and over the boundary of the rift.
Cadena, accepting that as fulfilling his obligation to protect Avatars LLC personnel, picks up the duct tape in his mouth, and rushes to catch up with Tracy.
There's a floor under Jason's feet. The white mist swirls out as if hungrily swallowing him up.
"Jason.." Tracy starts to say, then stares into the vortex. It may lead to the playground world Cadena described, or to someplace else. "Tracer? Tracer of House Trudeau, can you hear me?" she calls into the vortex, just in case. She could use someone with a flying horse, after all.
There's no response. It's as if Tracy had yelled into muffled cotton.
"You have her in your head, you said," Tracy says to Cadena. "What do you mean by that?"
The white dog looks with horror at Jason's departure. He hastily crams the duct tape into a pocket. "We have to get him out of there! It's not safe!"
"Right.. I'm crazy too I guess," Tracy says, and steps into the vortex. "C'mon, Cadena, time to try and rescue your former master I think."
"MASTER!" Cadena cries out, as he leaps after her.
As they step into the white vortex, plain office tiles give way to a marbled tile bridge, and the mist all around fades slowly to reveal a whole new landscape behind them. This world looks like a flying constellation of buildings, from pyramids to cathedrals, castles to minarets, circus ferris wheels and skyscrapers and even a rocket launch pad, joined by aqueducts and cresselated walls and suspension bridges. Ahead of them on the bridge is the single biggest building of them all, a floating white tower impossibly slender for its height; it runs down too far to see the foundations, and delicate feathery wires running from top to bottom are revealed as they approach them to be enormous flying buttresses linked to the other buildings.
The top is within sight, and from it, a solitary thread runs to the north, the way forward. To get to that point, however, requires climbing what seems like miles of stairs that run around the outside of the tower. An ironwork bannister rungs up the stairs, and skein of more decorative ironwork surrounds the tower as if it's wrapped with rose vines, the roses themselves being giant folds of golden metal.
Incongruously, what looks like armored legs sit on the landing directly ahead, where the bridge joins the stairway. They look similar to Jason's powered armor, except for being golden and more femininely curved. Etched onto the walls in curlique script are the words Catch me if you can.
"How did you get up and down this before?" Tracy asks Cadena, and turns to see if her dog is now Brother Cadena once more.
And there is Jason heading up the stairs. It's hard to say how he feels. Resigned, perhaps? "The only way out is up, " he remarks, unaware he has actually been followed. "Or through. Same thing, just one is a vector and the other is just vague." He heads towards those armored legs, unqure as to what they exactly are, or why they are shaped the way they are. "And the rule is to always avoid bait until the rest of the board is known," he mutters, choosing not to run for now.
Passing through the mists feels odd to Tracy. Her clothes feel different on her, and her senses feel more acute.
RIU clings close to Jason's shoulders, peering down at the fathomless depths over the edge of the bridge.
There is a white dog beside Tracy, but it is not necessarily the same Cadena that stepped through the portal with her. Blue chain-like patterns are clearly visible in its fur, slowly writhing and changing, and tracing across the surface. The bluish gem set in the dog's forehead glows faintly, and there's a distinct glow about the creature. Silvery shackles bind the dog's ankles, though the glittering chains attached to them drift off into the air, slowly drifting like seaweed underwater.
"That's very different," Tracy notes to the White Cadena Avatar, and takes a closer look at her own appearance here.
Tracy herself is dressed in fantasy clothes that would be more appropriate to Treasa Truclaw, in her human semblance.
The armored legs shift in place as if an invisible person were wearing them, and had just turned to notice Jason, followed at a distance by Tracy and Cadena.
Moderately annoyed, Jason tugs at his own flak jacket, trying to make it fit more comfortably. "Who are you?" he calls out the the ambulatory bits of armor. Of course if disembodied legs can talk, that'll be quite the feat.
There's no response, though the legs rock back a bit as if whomever was 'wearing' them was observing Jason and striking a 'Come and get me' pose.
"If those legs are dangerous, can you growl?" Tracy asks Cadena, unsure just what channels of communication he has available in his current form.
"Look, I hate to tell you this, since you sort of look feminine," Jason calls out as he continues towards the armor, "But that armor makes your thighs look puffy." He shifts again, then at one point as to move RIU to the top of his head so he can remvoe the flak jacket and rest it over his shoulders instead, apparently too annoyed by it now.
The armored legs spread out as if whomever was wearing them had shifted to an akimbo stance and was waving a finger at Jason annoyedly.
"I can growl," comes a voice from the direction of the white dog, though its mouth does not appear to be moving to form the syllables, "but I do not detect any killing intent from 'those legs.'"
RIU eebles! on Jason's head.
"And why do I have to catch you? I doubt you could catch me after all," Jason point out as he moves RIU back to his shoulders.
The legs shift to a coy stance, then begin to walk up the staircase slowly. One could almost imagine a tail swishing behind them.
"So, if I were a little girl, and just made a tower where you have to climb three miles of stairs to get to the next level up.." Tracy mutters. "The legs are magic pants that run you up or down the stairs quickly, I bet. Or.. Inari is already wearing them and just teasing Jason," she concludes. "I'm going to take the shortcut and climb up," she tells Cadena.
"This reminds me of a bad banana and peanut butter sandwich dream," Jason remarks. In spite of the dire situation, he looks a little more relaxed. Maybe a little amused, even. He heads after the armor and his pace picks up a bit.
As Jason starts to follow, the legs pick up speed.
"Or.. we could try to catch those legs," Tracy says, and starts running as well.
Jason's closing the gap on the legs, with Cadena loping alongside. The legs turn, see Jason coming up, and then break into an outright run!
"Maybe we just discovered Victoria's Secret. Automated running pants for those who don't have enough energy to exercise on their own," Jason remarks, "And ... why did you follow me? You two don't need to die today." The last bit was apparently directed at Cadena.
Off to a slow start at first, Tracy puts out a burst of speed and pulls up to alongside Jason. The legs are barely 25 feet ahead of them!
Cadena is just a step behind them.
"I think Cadena needs to be here," Tracy says between breaths, and runs on.
"RIU, ahead, try to stall ShinyPants," Jason instructs the dragon as he continues pursuit of the ... suit.
"I am compelled to see to your safety," comes a voice from the direction of the white dog. "I do not intend to interfere with your mission."
RIU zips up and puts on speed, trying to pass the legs!
"You are concerned about Tracy's safety, I'm aware you hate me," Jason remarks.
The legs pivot slightly, and then lean down into a lower to the ground running stance. Zoom! The gap widens a bit.
"I bear no ill will toward you," comes the reply from the dog, but it seems to be too focused on navigating the turns to explain any further for the moment.
"Time to take this to an extra dimension," Tracy says, and grabs onto the nearest iron-work vine. "I'm going to try and get ahead of it on the next tier," she tells the others and starts climbing.
"I see how you look at me. I'm ... not as kind as people wish me to be," Jason remarks as he continues after them. He suddenly wishes he had played the old track and field game more.
RIU speeds ahead of Jason a bit, but doesn't seem to make too much headway. It charges a bolt in its mouth instead, and takes aim at the legs...
"I do not wish to contradict, but perhaps you have mistaken me for someone else," the dog replies. "What is our current objective?"
"That should be obvious. We have two directions. Well, infinate if you consider a spiral stair is constantly changing our vector. But figuratively speaking we have up and down. We're going up and trying to catch phantom-pants," Jason says.
Behind the others now, Tracy clambers up the ironwork as she hurries to get ahead of the legs.
ZAP! The bolt smacks the legs, causing them to stumble a bit.
"Understood," the dog says, still running along. "At the end of this flight of stairs is an elevator."
The stumble gives Jason the opportunity to all but close the gap - it's just five feet away.
RIU puts on afterburners right after its shot and zooms ahead!
Jason is not flying McNinja, but he still tries to tackle the legs! It's .. okay, not that impressive of a leap all things considered, but he does manage to get a hold of the ankles. "If this were the Victorian era, I would get in trouble for daring to touch a ladie's ankles, he wheezes after impact to the stairs!
The legs struggle wildly in Jason's clutches, trying to pull themselves free!
... But to no avail. After a few seconds, they go limp in his clutches, no longer being moved by some unseen force.
"Haha! I've pant'sed a ghost," Jason declares, still face down on the stairs. "This is not as exciting as it sounds." It's also hard to get back upright when you dare not let go of the legs.
RIU comes about and perches on the legs, giving Jason a proud 'Look, I caught them!' expression.
Seeing the stairs end above her, Tracy keeps climbing - assuming there's a door or some other way into the tower at the end of them.
The white dog trots up the stairs, finally catching up with Jason, looking down at him and at the golden greaves. "Is that your objective?" The dog looks up in search of Tracy. "It is not much further to the elevator. There is another access to the elevator back down at the bridge."
Jason manages to get himself in a seated position so he can look over the armored legs up close. "I'm not sure," he admits to Cadena, "Or sure what to do with these." So .. he looks for notes or similar.
The armored legs look normal -- in fact, it looks like Jason's design from the inside, just with more femininely curved armor.
"So ... do I risk putting these things on?" Jason asks warily as he pokes at bits here and there.
The white dog sniffs at the armor. "The previous wearer was furred. The scent is familiar."
Jason actually tries sniffing the armor.
The white dog looks away, and scans the rest of the architecture. "We are losing the rest of our party. I will show the way to the elevator entrance." With that, it trots up the stairs.
"Okay, so Inari had these. Then why ... gah," Jason mutters and rubs his forehead. "I'm going to regret this on so many levels. I just know I am. If anyone makes any cross-dressing comments, I'm going to shoot them, push them over the edge, then claim ignorance of what happened to them." And with that little commentary, Jason activates the release sequence, then fits the armor over his own legs.
click clack The greased joints whir just a bit as they open the armor plates outward. When they close again, it's as if Jason's a golden armored kitsune from the hips down.
Jason gets to his feet and looks down. He rubs over his face, looking mortified. "This looks ... so wrong. The jets had better be worth the nightmares I'm going to have," he complains.
RIU cheebles and clings tight to Jason's shoulders, a bit jealous for unknown reasons!
As Jason fiddles with the hip armor plates, revealing a set of hidden switches, engines inside the boots spring to life. Whooosh!
"Right, now I hope this won't be like the first time. I still have that dent in the ceiling duct," Jason mutters as he fiddles ... and tries to rocket himself to the next platform and maybe beat Tracy! At least he'll have something to gloat over before the comments begin.
The white dog looks up and tries to call out directions to Jason, but soon realizes that it can't compete with the sound of those magic pants.
So, the dog just continues trotting up the stairs, making its slow but steady way along and upward.
Hearing an odd whooshing sound, Tracy tries climbing faster!
Jason tries to goose Tracy as he goes up.
"What... AHHH!" Tracy yelps, her knuckles turning white as she grips the iron tighter. "He did not just do that!" she grumbles and climbs the rest of the way to the platform.
The stairs end a complete circle from where the bridge joined the tower, about a mile short of the top. An archway is set here into the side of the tower, and a double door made of apparently clear glass fills the alcove formed by the archway, blocking a short corridor leading to an elevator with a wrought iron gate that would appear to go straight to the top. The doors have no apparent lock; instead, behind them there is an armored chest and arms, similar to Jason's armor save for their golden sheen and feminine lines, holding the doorknobs shut. Etched onto the doors are the words Open me if you can.
"Bony!" Jason adds as he zip by and reaches the next level!
Tracy just glowers and blushes when she reaches the platform, and waits for Cadena while trying to think of a good retort to girly-pants Jason.
Finally; "I knew you'd loosen up once you got into Inari's pants," Tracy tells Jason.
It's not exactly a graceful landing when the jets cut and Jason ends up stumbling around on the platform for a few seconds. It's mid-step when he notices the door and the bit beyond. "I'm sensing a theme," Jason remarks dryly. "And for some reason it involves embarrassing me." So he heads towards the door. And in the wake of Tracy's comment, Jason does the worst thing he can think of. He sashays the rest of the way to the door.
"RIU, are you recording this for later?" Tracy asks the little dragon. "I'll give you something shiny if you are and let me have a copy."
RIU beeps happily at Tracy from where it's hovering nearby!
"Hm," Jason muses. He tries to see if he can reach through the door to the armor beyond, or if there is a field or glass in the wy.
Tink! Jason's fingers brush against the glass, smudging it just a bit.
Jason checks to see if his toolkit includes a glass cutter. "RIU, to me please," he also adds.
"You could try saying 'Open Sesame' at it," Tracy suggests.
RIU beeps! and scoots to Jason's side.
"That's just silly, Tracy," Jason remarks. "RIU, can you try cutting the glass?"
The Chinese mini-dragon perches on Jason's armor to give itself a solid base of operation, then sprouts claws from one hand.
"At least try pushing or pulling first, before resorting to.. awww, never mind," Tracy says.
skrtch skrtch Its clawtips don't even scratch the glass.
"Okay, so no cutting," Jason complains. He peers at the handles, then takes ahold and tries to just pull the door open.
As much as Jason tries, the doors don't budge. It will apparently take extraordinary strength to overcome them.
Tracy waits while Jason goes through the obvious solutions.
"Tracy, ... hm, no. I won't ask you to fondle my thighs to activate the jets," Jason remarks. Instead, he tries to activate them with one hand while holding one handle in his other hand.
"Want me to try?" Tracy asks with a smile.
"Oh feh! C'mere, Tracy, hands around my waist. We'll pull together," Jason says.
If he were wearing the full suit, it would be no problem, since the suit was designed to react to his body motions. As it stands, with only part of the suit, he's not coordinated enough to be able to activate the jets while also holding onto the doorknob with any strength.
"What?" Tracy asks, then shrugs. "If you knock us back over the balustrade I'll be upset." She gets a grip around Jason's waist, and pulls with him.
"Well, if you have any better ideas, I'm all ears," Jason says as he grips the handles again. "Now, on three. One ... two ... three!" Jason pulls!
The armor appears to have to work a bit... But the doorknobs remain stubbornly shut.
"Okay, here's an idea," Tracy suggests. "Knock."
Jason resists the urge to kick the door. "There must be a trick to it," he says. After giving Tracy a look, Jason knocks.
Tock. Tock. Tock. There's no answer.
"I do have one more idea," Tracy says, with an uncertain cast to her mouth.
"Any other bright ideas, catgirl?" Jason asks. He also peers at the doors, pondering.
Handing over her trenchcoat, Tracy says, "Give me as much room as you can."
Jason steps away from the door. He now stands, watching curiously and shifting his weight back and forth. "I feel really odd wearing these pants," he admits in thought.
Tracy paces out the area of the platform, and then starts to perform some gymnastics tricks: backflips on her hands, splits, spins and complicated jumps, finally landing in a kneeling position facing the door with her arms spread wide and head bowed forward. "Ta-da!" she says, hoping to get the armor to let go of the handles and applaud.
The armor remains unimpressed.
"Open Sesame!" the girl tries, before getting to her feet.
Evidently that wasn't the password.
"Tracy ... I really worry about you," Jason admits. He heads back to the doors and stares at them. He draws a deep breath, then leans forward, head resting on the door frame. "Inari," he says in a whisper, "Please let me in. I walked away once, I won't this time. Either the door opens or I'll stay out here forever."
"You probably shouldn't have phrased it like that," Tracy mutters.
There's still no answer.
Jason pulls back and checks for hinges and hinge pins.
"Some days you're brilliant, other days ... not so much. We won't talk about this day to anyone. I should have checked the hinges first," Jason admits as he grabs a screwdriver and a small peen hammer from his kit and goes about dismantling the hinges on the door so that they can just be removed.
Sure enough - there are hinge pins, set into decorative wrought iron fittings that make it look like part of the gate. Any serious security installation would have done a better job of making them be part of the doors and recessed within a reinforced wall, but perhaps security wasn't the first thing on the mind of whomever designed this place.
Ding! A chime sounds from the elevator. The floor indicator dial starts going downward.
Jason tries to hurry and get the doors off and the armor out before it gets squished!
As Jason removes the hinge pins, the doors clatter outward... And the armor relaxes its grip, now that the two halves no longer fit together securely. It's as if it's just a normal unoccupied section of armor now.
Jason pokes the armor ... then probably confuses Tracy by sniffing it too.
"So you're saying that sometimes I'm brilliant, or are you just talking to yourself again?" Tracy asks as she puts her trenchcoat back on.
The chestpiece, attached to the two arms by enclosing shoulder pads, rests on top of a glass door emptily.
Jason doesn't answer that question. He goes about opening the armor panels, then fitting the musky armor on. Arms first, then back and chest pieces. "No comments from you," Jason warns Tracy. "I feel odd enough as it is."
The floor indicator stops for a few seconds. Ding! The elevator begins climbing again.
"If it changes you into Inari, don't cry to me about it," Tracy says, and looks down the stairs to see if Cadena is close yet.
There's no sign of Cadena on the stairs.
As the armor panels snap into place, Jason feels once again protected from the outside elements. sproing! A holographic tail materializes behind him. What the... He didn't program that in, he's pretty sure.
It's just lacking the helmet piece to be a full set of kitsune armor.
"If it changes me into Inari, I'll willingly eat one of your socks," Jason counters. He looks down for a few seconds, then sighs. "They look better on her," he claims. that worry is short-lived, as he's now trying to look behind himself and poke at the holo-tail.
Jason's fingers pass through the holotail.
A soft white glow comes up the elevator shaft.
"If it's so awkward, you could always give it to me to wear," Tracy offers with a grin. "After you washed out that smell."
"Great, I have hips, a waist, a tail, and a chest," Jason mutters. "And what's wrong with the smell? I think the smell is fine. It's ... relaxing, sort of."
"Would you really want me smelling like Inari though?" Tracy asks coyly, before giving her attention to the elevator.
"True. I would rather have Inari smelling like Inari," Jason admits as he comes to inspect the elevator with Tracy.
Jason does make sure to stand close to Tracy to share in the scent, though ... porbably just to annoy her.
The elevator finally rises back to position, an old-fashioned roll-door sliding to the side. Behind it is a large, glowing white dog, with silvery chains drifting around in the air from the silvery shackles around its ankles. It looks at the two, looks at Jason in the golden armor, looks past them at the doors lying on the ground, then looks back at them again.
"Why didn't you mention there was an elevator entry lower down?" Tracy asks calmly.
"Right, put the doors back," Jason grumbles. He turns around and goes to put the doors back up before getting in the elevator.
Disregarding the male face, the armor does make Jason look like a metal Art Deco sculpture version of Inari. He doesn't feel much stronger, but perhaps it's because when in place, the armor is using most of its strength to reduce its effective weight. He definitely feels more secure within its armor.
"I did not have the opportunity to do so when it would have been convenient," comes the voice from the white dog. "In any case, it appears you have overcome this challenge on your own. Congratulations."
The white dog then shuffles back further in the elevator to make room, even tucking the drifting chains in tighter so they aren't poking anyone.
"Are these challenges set by the creator of this place, or by Inari passing through though?" Tracy asks. "Or is the Inari scent just to indicate the challenges are meant for Jason?"
She also inspects the elevator panel once she's inside.
It's simple enough to replace hinge pins. Jason would have to give up his tech card if he couldn't fix those. Each door is back in place and the wrought iron pins carefully tapped back in. "Why would there be challenges for me? It's not like i knew the creator of this place?" he asks as he joins them in the elevator.
The elevator doesn't have buttons inside; it has a lever. Push up to go up, pull down to go down.
"I have no knowledge regarding these challenges," replies the white dog. "I believe it is customary to simply take the elevator up to the top, if one does not wish to take the scenic route."
Tracy pulls the metal fence closed, and pulls the lever upwards then.
Whoosh!
The elevator emerges into a walled garden at the very top of the tower, the walls rising overhead to form a dome made out of a delicate latticework of arches upon arches. Crystals and chimes hang from the supports, glittering like stars even in the daylight, the diffracted breezes causing them to ring in constant song. Though the tower is slender, even at the tip it still remains a mile in diameter; this part of the garden is ringed with a hedge maze upon which grow rambling roses, creating dense thorny walls.
The top of the elevator is an elegant curlique ironwork cage, surrounded by a dais of marble tiles. Etched into the tiles are the words, Find me if you can.
Looking to Jason, Tracy says, "You can fly. So maybe you should look for the center of the mazes?"
The white dog steps out, trotting over to a flower bed and breathing deeply from the blossoms. Its tail wags slightly, and it then straightens up, ears alert, scanning the surroundings.
Jason taps metal fingers against metal arms and tries not to look like he feel uncomfortable. He steps forward and tries to see if he can exit the cage surrounding the elevator. "So ... she's in the maze. Hm. Flying might be a good idea. "RIU, up and scout. I'll try to scout too in other sections." He ponders, then adds, "And Tracy, if you were a cat, you could track Inari's musk..."
RIU zips upward! ... And disappears from sight.
The white dog looks inquisitively toward Tracy.
"Cadena has a nose too," Tracy points out, as she exits the elevator and then tries to climb the cage, to see what's on top.
The white dog trots over to Jason, and sniffs at him - or at least at his armor.
"Oh come on, try shifting," Jason urges. He then frowns and notes, "The maze is obscured from above ..." Presumably he calls RIU back.
A swirl of colors resolves and becomes RIU's familiar blue-scaled form. It clings to Jason looking relieved to see him again!
"Okay.. but first.." Tracy says as she goes to the inscription, and checks to see if the tile with 'me' on it is loose or not.
The white dog nonchalantly trots into the garden maze.
The tile remains solid and immobile.
"Okay, so shift. I want to see this," Jason insists, not heading into the maze quite yet.
"Okay, here goes.." Tracy says, sounding nervous. You didn't feel the change in VR, really.. but this isn't quite the same thing! "If I end up like Akiko and Inari, I'll bite you," she warns, and then tries to shift into a panther.
"Ending up like Akiko and Inari isn't the worst thing in the world," Jason says, "Depending on which state it was."
Tracy hunches forward, her clothes melting into dark fur as she becomes a black panther. She circles around Jason then, and bats at his holographic fox-tail.
Odd thing, though Tracy was carrying equipment, there's no sign of them in her catform.
The white dog vanishes into the garden maze, the only clue to its location being the drifting silvery chains that trail it around.
"Hah, cute. I almost wish I could do that," Jason admits as he watches Tracy try to bat a hologram. "Now get a sniff and lets go after Cadena. Two noses are better than one."
Panther-Tracy sits back on her haunches and spreads her whiskers, as if trying to decide where to sniff Jason's armor. She decides on the feet, since.. well, they're closest to the ground after all.
Resisting the urge to lick her nose to purge the oil and electric odors, Tracy begins circling the platform to try and pick up the fox musk alone.
And Jason ... he just takes a hold of Tracy's tail since she doesn't have a leash. "I can't risk getting lost. My nose isn't as good," he claims.
Tracy growls something as her tail his grabbed, and follows after Cadena. She's never tracked something by smell before, and it's making her brain a bit buzzy. She feels.. more alive!
"Mush, mush," Jason encourages as he follows after the cat. Never mind mush is used for sled-dogs. "Do you sense anything, RIU? What is going on?" he asks the dragon, even though RIU can't directly answer.
Tracy wants to lope, and yanks her tail free. "RIU," she growls. "Ride!"
RIU buzzes after Tracy-panther as she shakes her tail loose of his grasp! It warbles back at Jason, a weird kind of sound that suggests... Something.
"Be careful, go slow!" Jason calls after Tracy and RIU. At least he should be able to trace the dragon through his link. As silly as this is, he can't help but feel something bad is about to happen.
The minidragon clings to Tracy as she slows enough to let it cling to her shoulders.
Tracy picks up her pace, so she can move at a more comfortable gait. Once she's in the maze though, she can't help but take a slower approach. She splays out her whiskers, and finds some spots where Cadena checked side passages before doubling back to the main scent trail. "Maybe Inari didn't know the way herself," she thinks, still uncertain of the kitsune's connection to this place.
Jason, for his part, trails after them, keeping tabs on their location through the link to RIU.
The maze opens out onto an open grassy clearing in the very center of the rose maze. There a fountain burbles, spraying water upward in spiraling streams that resemble chainlink shapes before they shatter against the upper basin in a cloud of droplets, spilling over the edge to fill a lower basin perfect for wading on a hot summer day. Upon the fountain is a brilliant white statue of a dog, one foreleg raised and nose pointed in classic hunting pose, lacquer inlaid in a stylized chain motif along its cheek-ruffs and shoulders. A statue of a young lady knight stands before it, garbed in elaborate armor and furled cape, her sword placed so that as the water sprays upon the blade, it forms a rainbow.
In front of the statue, a robot designed to look like a kitsune stands, dressed in a kimono. In its arms is the fox-shaped golden helmet that matches the rest of the powered armor suit. Could this be Kimon?
The large white dog is startled from regarding the scene, as it turns around to spy the panther and little dragon entering the clearing.
Tracy immediately dashes to one side of the entrance, and crouches down to try and ambush Jason when he arrives. Her tail lashes about.. and she may have simply forgotten about the dragon riding on her.
"My danger sense is tingling. This is impressive since I don't have a danger sense," Jason admits as he carefully steps out into the center area, having tracked Tracy through his link to RIU. He doesn't seem to notice Tracy yet.
Haunches tense, and Tracy pounces!
Maybe Jason has built-in defenses ... because he isn't even looking and yet he moves with a disturbing level of grace. He ducks, leans, and spins out of the way of the pouncing panther. "Now, was that necessary?" he asks nonchalantly. He shakes his head and walks slowly towards the robot holding the helmet. He doesn't touch it or the robot yet; he circles it instead.
"Yes," Tracy growls after landing, then trots towards the fountain as well.
"Why?" Jason asks, leaning in to get a close look at the helmet without touching.
"I was wanted to lick your face before you put the helmet on," the panther answers, then sniffs the water in the fountain.
"Good grief, why?" Jason asks.
The white dog, apparently reading no malice between the panther and the man, despite the antics, turns around and trots on over to join them in regarding the robot and helmet. The dog pauses at a respectful distance, then bows its head to the robot.
"To see what you taste like of course," the cat replies, and wiggles her ears.
"You are disturbed," Jason remarks ... while sniffing at the helmet.
The ever-present wind-chime music deepens as they approach the center. The robot appears perfectly still... Until they step onto the marble platform that surrounds the fountains. "Greetings, Jason Edwards. Well met, she who walks in shadows. Welcome, child of the Light." Its voice is similar to the BLACK, old and young voices, male and female speaking each phrase, but there's a difference in how it speaks: instead of sharp dissonance between each phrase, they blend one into the next smoothly, as if it were singing.
It raises the helmet, but to emphasize it, not to place it on Jason's head. "Have you come seeking the child of darkness and light? She whom you call Inari?"
Jason abruptly takes a step back. "Who are you and what did you do with Inari?" he asks, his fingers wiggling a bit. Segments along the wrists of the armor pop up, followed by a faint electrical whine. "Of course I have come to find her, she is a dear friend."
"She would call you more than dear friend," the robot observes. "Truth manifests in strange ways in this place. Symbols matter."
Tracy remains silent, but does watch Jason closely now.
RIU flitters up from the air where it had hovered, ever since Tracy's leap, then moves to stay close to Jason.
"I would call her more than that as well," Jason admits as he eyes the strange robot, his voiec tinted with considerable worry. "We have both been through a lot. We began as enemies ... and ended up becoming closer than anyone would expect. I almost lost her once, I don't intend to lose her again."
Not-Kimon nods slowly. "It will complicate things if you choose to wear her. I can only advise, I cannot compel."
"You mean Inari is the armor?" Tracy asks, sitting up straighter.
"How will it complicate things?" Jason asks and lists his armored hand. "I do not know what to do with this other than wear it. I'm not about to leave it behind."
"Put it together by itself," Tracy suggests.
Not-Kimon answers, "The being you know as Inari... The being you know as Akiko... They are two halves of the same coin."
"I know. I was there when they were one and had to be separated. I separated them to save their sanity," Jason says. "How do I save her now?"
"Inari was Akiko's armor, right? Symbolism!" Tracy suggests. "If you put the helmet on, Inari would by your armor I think. But there's nothing to risk in taking it off and putting it together by itself, right? If nothing happens.. nothing happens. If she comes to life, then we'll have Inari again."
"And if I put it on, Inari will now be linked to me?" Jason asks, then looks over at Tracy, worried.
"It is... complicated," Not-Kimon admits. "Between Avatar and Link there is a connection. Without this connection there is a hole in the soul. You have separated that which was Akiko and that which was Inari, but you could not give them this connection. It was damaged by Forester."
"It's a matter of sacrifice," Tracy suggests, padding around Jason now. "Right now, to make Inari whole, you have to give up the security she gives you. I think only Akiko should wear the complete armor."
The white dog rises from his genuflecting position, and trots purposefully up toward Not-Kimon, but via a roundabout route, coming in from the side, lining himself up so that he does not interpose himself between Not-Kimon and Jason.
"That I know, from what Inari told me. I don't know how to fix that," Jason admits and takes a moment to rub his forehead. "Is she right? Is this a matter of sacrifice? Do I have to let Inari go again?"
"You don't have to," Tracy says. "Put the helmet on, and I think her link to Akiko will be broken, and she'll be with you always. But what will that do to Akiko? Take it off! Put it together! Ask Inari what she wants!"
Not-Kimon tilts its head toward Tracy, then to Jason. "Armor has many purposes. Defense. Challenge. To enhance your power. To hide your weakness. None of these purposes can be achieved without the wearer."
"The wearer defines the armor," the Not-Kimon says.
"But, do you really need Inari to be any of that for you, Jason?" Tracy asks. "I don't know what will happen if you put that helmet on, but I am asking you to be absolutely sure you need it before you do."
"I would never force Inari to do anything or be bound to anyone," Jason agrees and actually starts removing the armor that he had collected on the journey up here. "I will see what happens if it is assembled without me. If that fails, then ... I will decide what must be done." And that last comment, Jason adds, "And I worry the armor may define its wearer after a time."
The panther seems pleased with this decision.
The Not-Kimon studies Jason and the armor, then holds the helmet out.
Jason remains seated on the ground where he assembles the suit without an occupant. "I hope you're right about this, Tracy. I hope this isn't a mistake," he says quietly. He draws a deep breath, then reaches up and takes the offered helmet. He actually kisses its forehead, then lowers it down and places it with the rest of the pieces. "Never kiss and run," he tells it, then snaps its connections closed on the suit.
click The powered armor suit hums to life...
Of course, once Jason says that, Tracy can't help but think of horrible scenarios, like the armor being possessed by some other force, or going berserk, or trying to kiss Jason.
Jason sits back and watches the suit. His eyes close and there he waits and breathes. It's hard to believe this is the same guy who held a gun to someone's head earlier. From someone convicted and hard, so someone vulnerable and afraid.
The white dog seems to be paying more attention to the chime-song in the air than to the events unfolding before "Not Kimon," but then he looks momentarily to one side, toward the nearby statuary.
And slowly melts, armor to fur, the outline shrinking inward. A jumpsuit materializes upon her body, and the holographic tail becomes real, tailtip twitching. Inari stirs briefly, then looks up. "What... Where am I?" she says, her voice faint.
Relieved, Tracy looks to Cadena, and then tries to be more alert as well when the canine seems focused elsewhere.
Not-Kimon observes, but says nothing.
"Over the rainbow ... of a sort," Jason admits, letting his eyes open now. He's careful as he lifts Inari's head and places it in his lap. "I was terrified I lost you again," he admits. "This place made ... you into a suit. I almost wore it in totality ... but it might have just rebound you and I never want you to have those choices made for you. Only you should make such decisions."
"A.. Suit? I didn't know..." Inari grins up at Jason. "You wanted to wear my clothes." She stretches. "Feel empty. Maybe I need something to eat."
"I ... I'm not sure I can really explain it. This being here described you as one with your link broken, but I don't know how to fix it," Jason admits as he tries to help her sit upright.
The white dog returns his attention to Inari's and Jason's reunion, standing up from where he was resting on the ground, but he does nothing more than watch.
"Symbols," Tracy growls. "When you say empty, can you be more specific?" the cat asks.
Inari wakes up a bit more, getting to her feet. "I-- what? Why would I want to be Linked to anyone again? I like being free!" She glowers at the Not-Kimon suspiciously.
"Are you sure?" Jason asks Inari as he gets to his feet to stand beside her. "You would not wish to have the closeness the link offered? Not with Akiko or anyone else?"
Tracy looks from Inari to Cadena, and then pads over to the dog. "You said she was in your head with you before," the cat points out. "What did you mean?"
"He was referring to her," the white dog says, turning momentarily to glance toward a nearby statue. "The plaque. It is not as it was."
Inari begins to answer, then cuts it off. She looks around at the white dog, the black cat, the Kimon-like robot that seems to command attention despite its apparently servile appearance. "I... I don't know. I miss the old days, when Akiko and I were a team. When there was nothing that we couldn't beat together. Now I feel like I have to be strong by myself. And then there was you..." She squeezes Jason's hand. "Why didn't you finish putting me on?"
The panther pads over to the statues, to read the plaque.
The plaque reads, "Margaret Elizabeth Arcadia. February 29, 2060 - ... May you build your dreams into reality in the hereafter."
"Cadena, is Margaret one of your personalities - or does she just talk to you, or to one of them?" Tracy asks.
"She is not dead," Not-Kimon says quietly, its voices a soft sussurus that blends with the wind chimes. "She hangs on the edge between life and death."
"Then where is the edge?" Tracy asks the robot. "Where do we find her? Does.. does she need to wear Inari?"
"Because whom you link to should be your choice. There was concern that ... if I had completed it, you would be re-linked ... to me. I couldn't choose that for you," Jason admits. "I would sacrifice for you ... not take from you. Plus ... and please forgive me ... I found it very disconcerting to he wearing your butt." He even tries to grin a little at that. "It's not quite how I would want to become a kitsune..."
"The other Cadenas are not here," the white dog says quietly to the panther. "The garden is here, but they are not, and neither is she - only her monument. She does not speak to us. We only have her memory."
"Who made the monument then?" Tracy asks, looking from Cadena to Not-Kimon.
"There is no connection between Margaret and Inari," the Not-Kimon answers of Tracy. "I do not know her location in the world you call Earth. I know only that her spark is here. A place she loved. She shivers. It is cold where she is. Very cold."
"She is in cryogenic suspension," Jason says, his mind catching on that description and taking it to its conclusion.
Inari smirks. "So, you want to be a kitsune... But not a girl kitsune. You are so picky," she says, leaning up to kiss Jason on the nose. "Well, am I going to get Linked today?"
"I don't know about today. You should be linked when you know who you wis to be linked to," Jason admits. "And it wouldn't be fun to be a girl kitsune ... because I would lose you."
Tracy closes her eyes and thinks. "Margaret needs a new body," she says. "Maybe she can be Inari's Link. I don't know, but there has to be a reason. When we go to the next area in her playground, we'll have a different Cadena, won't we?"
The white dog's ears flick. He's slow to answer the panther's questions, and seems a bit behind in the conversation. "Her family converted this place into a shrine, so that it might be a reminder of her talents and interests, for those who survived her. It is they who added the plaque. This is the only place where we can pay our respects. We do not know her final resting place."
The robot returns its attention to Jason and Inari. It walks slowly toward them, reaching one hand into its kimono sleeve.
Jason rubs his forehead. "We may be able to save Margaret," he offers. "If we can find her body ... and get it in here. That may be it. In the realms where stability is uncertain ... she could be rewritten. Undo that which is killing her. Like ... sort of like what I did for Inari and Akiko, only separate out just what is killing her."
Of course his train of thought stops there when the kitsune-robot approaches. "Hi?" he says nervously to it.
"It should be close then," Tracy says, then opens her eyes and notices the robot had moved. She gets to her feet and tenses, in case it's about to attack Jason.
The robot withdraws its hand, with what looks like a clear sparkling crystal collar within it. "It is not given to many Avatars to choose a new Link," the Not-Kimon says in a breath like sighing wind. "No Avatar has gone through what you have." It holds the collar out, but to Inari, not to Jason.
Inari looks hesitant to accept it. "Jason, why is your robot trying to collar me?"
"Maybe you put that on your Link," Tracy suggests. "To show it's your choice."
"IT's a symbol. I think. She's giving it to you, so that you can offer it to the person you wish to be your link," Jason suggests.
"Oh! If you wanted it, you should have put a collar on it?" Inari grins to Jason, then accepts it with ceremony. She makes it disappear into one of her jumpsuit's concealed pockets somehow. "Domo arigato, Kimon-sama."
"In fact, I'm pretty sure that is what it symbolizes," Jason says after a bit of thought ... and peering at it. "It will allow us to rewrite your link when the time is right."
RIU chews on Jason's ear insistently on the other side from Inari where she can't see.
The white dog momentarily looks as if it's going to say something, but then seems to think the better of it, bowing its head respectfully to Inari and Jason.
"Now if you can find her a nice kitsune to help keep her company, she would be all set," Jason jokes to Not-Kimon. "In fact ... ow, hey!" Jason bats at RIU.
The Not-Kimon bows in response to Inari. "You are welcome, child of Light and Dark. Choose your Link with caution. It is not given to any Avatar to Link a third time." It returns its attention toward Cadena and the statue.
RIU looks smug. Also jealous.
"We have to keep moving," Tracy claims. "We have to find Margaret's.. We have to find Margaret."
The white dog straightens up again, at attention, as the robot turns its way.
"You carry a Spark of my past self," Not-Kimon intones. It seems to be listening to the empty air.
"It may not be in here Tracy," Jason points out, "But yes, we should move on." He quickly says to Inari, "One more thing, no matter who you choose, I'll still be there for you." And then he hurries over to inspect the statue himself.
Inari trails after Jason, looking a bit bewildered still. "Last I recall, I was in the Q-Link... How did we get to this garden? And something's up with Cadena. And... What's with the cat?"
"Tracy is the cat, Cadena has gone off the deep end, and we're in a virtual world. All of you have super powers and I have a hammer. Talk about feeling deficient," Jason remarks.
Not-Kimon says softly, "Being the Champion of the Light is a great burden. Do you wish to set it down?"
Inari blinks. "What are we doing in a virtual world? Did I fall through a synecdoche?... Again?"
"WHITE!" Tracy yelps at the the robot. "You're another fragment of the WHITE, aren't you?"
"As long as the Spark has a use for me," the white dog says, "I shall not shirk the duty for which I was created. My brethren are not all of one accord about this, but we nonetheless recognize and accept our duty."
"Several invaded the Q-Link chamber. It's a terrible mess. We have to go through them and shut down the system," Jason offers.
Not-Kimon says in that chorus of voices, "We are the WHITE that is. Spark is the WHITE that was. We have learned from the lessons of the past. We will not impose our order upon your world."
"Is that what BLACK is now trying to do? Or Andrei?" Jason inquires.
Not-Kimon reaches up to the base of the statue and then concentrates. "Yes."
"Why?" Jason asks next.
The white dog follows Not-Kimon, watching the statue closely.
"What about Jason Dragonhand?" Tracy asks. "What outcome does he seek?"
The statue slowly begins to glow. Or, is it that light is running beneath its exterior, to collect where Not-Kimon's hand is set? "The BLACK seeks to challenge the players. This has always been the mission of the BLACK. The other Jason, his dark mirror and nemesis, seeks to become God. Andrei... Andrei wishes to kill God. This I have read in the skein of that which is and that which will be."
"And who is the God Andrei wishes to kill?" Jason asks curiously. "and that which the other of me wishes to become?"
"I wonder where Sasha fits in," Tracy says. "I think it means Jason Dragonhand wants to create a new universe, based on his own mind. Wasn't Dr. Locksley saying something about that? Potential realities, waiting for a mind to make them real?"
Not-Kimon withdraws its hand from the statue, holding cupped in it a mote of light. "Do not your religions teach you... God made the Earth?" The robot kitsune kneels down before Cadena. "Champion of the Light, will you bear the soul of your friend?"
The white dog bows its head. "If I may speak on behalf of my brethren, we would be deeply honored, and accept this burden."
"I don't really follow any theological belief systems," Jason admits and shrugs.
Not-Kimon lets the light go. It floats free and drifts toward Cadena's head... then sinks in right between his eyes.
"It's the Zeus System," Tracy says. "Andrei wants to rewrite the laws of nature."
The blue gem on the white dog's forehead glows brilliantly.
The WHITE in Kimon-form stands. "You have much to do. I wish you well, heroes."
"This is all very disturbing," the panther comments as she watches the transfer. "Thank you, WHITE.."
"I would like to ask you about kitsunes later," Jason notes to the 'WHITE' fragment. "But ... right now there is a lot to deal with. And I'm not quite sure the title of hero applies to us. We'll be lucky if we don't get killed by a potato demon."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-04-24-interlude-jason-white.htmlIn the background, Tracy and Cadena seem to have wandered off in a different direction, looking around the clearing at an odd collection of artifacts, perhaps souvenirs of Margie and Cadena's explorations in virtual reality. RIU remains attentively close, snuggled around Jason's shoulders. Inari frowns thoughtfully at the collar the WHITE has provided, studying the clear glassy material.
A golden robot that resembles Kimon stands before the statue of Margaret Elizabeth Arcadia, where the plaque proclaims her birthday... but a blank space remains where her death date would have been. Its voice is not Kimon's however, for it sounds like a choir of voices, all genders and ages, speaking one after another. Unlike the BLACK, it is harmonious.
"I sense a loneliness in you, Jason Edwards," Not-Kimon says quietly. "You are drawn to Inari, and yet you feel you must let her go to save Akiko. To make her whole. Yet... She is in love with you. She does not love Akiko so much as she had. These things are obvious to one who studies the threads of Fate."
RIU eyes the sky warily. While it is clear overhead, the minidragon senses rising winds.
Jason rubs over his face and grumbles in an overly-pained way. "So much for being the man of mystery and unknown intentions," he grumbles in his usual way of sound put-upon when confronted with his own ... concerns. "Nothing is ever simple," he admits. "I care about Akiko and what her to be happy and both of them have admitted either directly or indirectly to feeling lonely. Akiko has even said she wishes she were close to Inari again. So who am I to get in the way, or cause complications? Even if ..." There he has to pause and sigh, "Even if I find I'm falling in love with Inari. She's not human. That much is clear, from her scent to her body to her actions. But ... it doesn't seem to matter, she's ... one of the few people I've never felt I had to justify my actions to. She accepts me as I am."
"But at the same time I fear that my own actions, the fact I made Inari in a sense how she is today is why she is in love with me. I'm afraid that her feelings are not of free will," Jason admits as he looks skyward. "And while many people would delight in having that ability ... it is not one I would want. I don't want to force anyone, even indirectly."
Inari continues studying the collar, turning it around and around. There's no clasp for it, no obvious way to open it. It's possessed of an apparent perfect symmetry.
Not-Kimon looks sympathetic. "Human love is difficult to comprehend even for such as we," it confesses. "The love an Avatar feels for its Link is different. It is a need. It is a trust. The master provides strength of spirit. The Avatar provides strength of body, or sometimes, of magic."
RIU perks up as it senses it's being described. It poses all dynamically and impressively! Rawr!
"There are masters ill suited to their Avatars. They do not bond as well. But still the Avatar loves its master, for there is only one master it will ever have," Not-Kimon continues.
"If I had to describe love as I understand it, it is a desire that the other be happy. A willingness to help that person be happy unconditionally. Nothing must be given back," Jason describes, "And that is what I want for her. To find the path that makes her the happiest. It's hard, though, in that I want that to be me. I have to be careful. I don't want to end up like Blake did. Or ... like the copy of me is becoming." He shrugs slightly. "And a master can only have one Avatar, correct?"
The WHITE stares into the distance a second, where the sea rises up to meet the sky. "Such was the rule ordained, that when one who could command an Avatar came of age to do so, they should receive one and only one.. The Avatar's life is the master's. The Avatar will never perish until its master does; so long as its master clings to life, however grievous the wound, the Avatar will retreat to lick its wound and then return anew. One Avatar, one master. But it has never happened before that an Avatar's link is severed. That the Avatar can choose. That the Avatar can love as humans do."
"So, with Inari, you don't know for certain," Jason remarks as he reaches up to scratch RIU's neck. "I would not do anything to risk the bond I have with RIU," he admits. He looks over to Inari for a bit, studying her. "I can't believe I'm asking this, and maybe Inari was joking ... but she suggested that I should consider becoming like her, a kitsune. It's one way I realized I really was falling in love with her; I actually have considered it. Could I become like her ... safely? That is, could I give up my humanity without risk to who I am mentally and my link to RIU?"
The not-Kimon turns to study Jason closely.
And Jason shifts about uncomfortably. He never did like being stared at.
"Yes," the WHITE responds. "You have already accessed system tools of such a type. The true question is, who would you trust to perform the change?"
"Okay, so this has to be one of the weirdest sensations ever, even odder than the time the whipped cream machi ... " Jason asks, then blinks repeatedly. He had expected the answer would be no, frankly. "And my honest answer is, I don't know. I saw what you did to Blake. You claim to be different now, but that has yet to be proven," he says, "Plus I fear it might be ... painful."
Not-Kimon tilts its head. "Is it truly pain you fear?"
It folds its hands, then opens them again, upward, forming a tiny foxfire in which Jason makes out an image. Blake Forester, his kid-self, the other children... And Akiko and Inari, her nonmorphic form, all fighting some sort of giant monster waving its octopus tentacles around. Is that really her? They looked so happy, long ago. Before... Was there some singular event that turned Blake Forester corrupt, or was he plotting disaster even then?
"I fear losing myself, true enough. All it takes is one choice to start down a path that leads ... an alternate version of myself is already doing it," Jason admits, shrugging slightly. "But even with that, being like her is tempting," he admits. "It is something I will have to think heavily on. I can also talk to Inari about it."
The not-Kimon closes its hands, then opens them. The foxfire shows young Akiko flinging herself into the path of some monstrous beam, trying to knock her friends out of the line of fire. Inari throws herself at the fallen Akiko's feet, keening, and then Blake is there, holding a massive glowing crystal. He says something indistinct, for no sounds can be heard from the illusion, and sets it down. It bursts into a blinding light...
And when the light remains, a golden anthropomorphic fox rises, staring disbelievingly at its hands.
"Did he first do it to save her? Or did he cause the situation in the first place?" Jason has to wonder. "I would not seek to join Akiko and Inari again, not in the way Blake had. They need to be separate people. It was costing them both their sanity."
"And if the choice were to let both die?" asks the WHITE quietly.
"He could have undone it once they were healed," Jason points out, though he unfortunately understands the point being made. "He didn't have to leave them like that. as for me ... I, no I wouldn't let them die. I would sooner trade my own life first."
Not-Kimon nods quietly. "The storm clouds gather. This universe will soon be washed into the sea of the Metaverse. If you seek transformation, seek me out again. If you would trust the inheritor of the WHITE's mantle."
Indeed, black storm clouds are forming ominously over the horizon to the east. The air feels chilly. RIU shivers.
"I'll ... keep that in mind," Jason answers noncommittally. Jason rubs his forehead, thinking now. "In this place ... I have my mind, RIU, and little else. while he can do many amazing things ... I fear my own ability to keep my friends safe while in here. I had been working on ways to augment my own natural abilities, but those efforts rest in my lab. So, in a step to see if you are trustworthy once more ... could you provide me the armor I have been working on? I fear I will soon need it to protect my friends. Some monsters can't be beaten through wit alone."
Not-Kimon tilts its head sideways. "How would this demonstrate trustworthiness? Would not it be more logical to fear someone who could reach through space and time to pluck a treasure away?"
"Because I have faith in my ability to shut you down if I had to," Jason claims as he resists the urge to smirk. "As for why it would demonstrate trustworthiness ... one, I asked, you didn't do it on a whim. Two, it would show willingness to help. Three, it would also show you want us to survive as well."
The WHITE smiles a bit, or perhaps it's just how it dipped Not-Kimon's head a bit to take advantage of the natural muzzle curvature. "It is impossible to reach into the world of Earth so quickly. But... The armor's image is strong in your mind. It is linked to you. In this world, symbols are strong." It considers. "Raise your hand, Jason Edwards. Touch my chest. Think of your armor. Call it to you."
"Okay, I shall forevermore remember this as the day I fondled a God. Good thing I didn't put anything there to actually feel," Jason thinks to himself. He wiggles his fingers, then reaches out and places his hand upon Kimon's chest. He isn't sure quite how to call it, so he visualizes how he built it. Exploded wireframe models flow through his mind. Seemingly endless wiring diagrams, tension equations for the synthetic muscles, coils for the modified tesla-coil style charge weaponry, to even the armatures used to hold it come to the fore of his mind. He thinks on how he stepped into the framework for the first time and it came to life to close itself around him. He also tries to not think about how the first time malfunctioned and gave him the world's worst wedgie when it lifted him up by his shorts.
Lines run across the Not-Kimon's body as it separates into components. It becomes briefly a 3d wireframe model, then the lines shift and reposition themselves, aligned like his armor-- except they are over his body. One by one, texture flows across the pieces and remake them into solid pieces snapping into place.
And when the process ends, Jason is wearing -- male, not female! -- golden power armor, complete to the amber helmet in fox-shape that settles over his head, as RIU flutters up and out of the way before it snaps shut.
The WHITE whispers, "Cadena knows the way. This icon is no longer required. May it serve you well, Jason Edwards."
"Okay, this feels ... really strange," Jason admits as he feels the structures become solid around him. And he's extremely grateful it isn't female. That little factor was really strange earlier. And gold? Heh! He never actually painted his any color, but he somehow can't complain too much about the color choice here. Even if it's just armor, there's something good about at least appearing closer to Inari physically. His attention is quick to return to Not-Kimon when she speaks. He says the only thing he can think of at the time, "We will speak again."
Inari puts the collar back into her jumpsuit, still looking indecisive. "Things were easier when all we had to do was fight monsters-- Jason! When'd you get your armor back?"
"WHITE," Jason admits. "We had a talk about a lot of things. I don't know what we're going to encounter in these places, but I need to be able to protect everyone, you included," he says. "Even though I know you don't really need my protection it, just .. well. Argh. I care about you. I probbaly shouldn't even tell you this, but ..."
The golden vixen smiles wickedly and then slinks up, leaning against Jason's front. He shouldn't be able to feel her jumpsuit-clinging form that well through armor. "Well, if you want me to role-play being a damsel in distress..."
"That ... I ... argh. You're distracting me," Jason complains, yet he does nothing to actually push Inari away. In fact, his arms drape around Inari's waist and he's mindful to not put too much pressure on her. "I could become like you," he tells her, voice quiet. "I could give up my humanity and be like you, kitsune. There is a way, it's just ..."
"You could?" Now Inari's eyebrows raise, but she snuggles into Jason's arm, resting her cheekruff on his chest. That's another point in the armor's favor: it gives Jason a few inches of height. "I sense a but."
In the distance, lightning flashes from horizon to heaven. It takes seconds for the actual thundercrack to wash across the garden.
"It probably isn't a good idea to look into while the universe might crumble around us," Jason admits, "And ... well ... I'm afraid to do it. It requires trusting one of the ADs. And it would be a lot to get used to. Extra appendages, a new scent, and, well ... I fear what your entourage and fans would say. Can you imagine the uproar that would happen if another person like you showed up? Hm, actually, that's a motivation to do it, I like causing a little controversy."
RIU gnaws on one of Jason's armor 'ears'. It tickles a bit.
"I'm not seeing a downside," Inari admits.
The golden vixen adds, "Well, except for trusting an AD. You're going to have to build one."
"Maybe we should just model it out first in Gloaming," Jason offers, grinning inside his helmet. "I mean, how many chances do people get to basically build the their 'dream' guy. Physically, that is."
Inari smiles and then licks Jason's nose. "Um. You taste like honey. You'd better be careful or I'll start gnawing you like RIU."
"I may take you up on that offer," Jason says in an apparent moment of actually allowing what he says to match what he feels. "But for now we have a storm to face. I don't know what will happen, so I'll say this now. Thank you for being you. I wouldn't want, or wish, you any other way. Now, lets go find Tracy before she decides to try opening a door by mooning it. At least that's all I hope she tries ... that girl is crazy."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\2011-05-01-interlude-tracy-and-not-kimon.htmlIn the background, Jason and Inari seem to have wandered off in a different direction, looking around the clearing at an odd collection of artifacts, perhaps souvenirs of Margie's explorations in virtual reality. Cadena appears lost in memories of his previous companion as he contemplates the garden. Tracy knows immediately what's going on: this is an 'instanced' mode where everyone gets to feel like they are personally interacting with the quest-giving NPCs, without having to wait for the others to be able to get a word in edgewise. No doubt Jason, Cadena, and Inari are having their own discussions with the WHITE.
A golden robot that resembles Kimon stands before the statue of Margaret Elizabeth Arcadia, where the plaque proclaims her birthday... but a blank space remains where her death date would have been. Its voice is not Kimon's however, for it sounds like a choir of voices, all genders and ages, speaking one after another. Unlike the BLACK, it is harmonious.
"I sense frustration," not-Kimon says quietly. "A soul in search of answers. A hero who has yet to claim her sword. You yearn to prove yourself. How may we assist you, daughter of the Sorceress?"
"That's.. really grandiose," Tracy notes. "Uh.. well.. can you tell me how Lady Tracer is doing?" the girl ends up asking. "I mean, is she happy? Has she changed at all over the past few years?"
Not-Kimon tilts its head at Tracy. "Yes."
The clearing grows strangely dark, as if a cloud were passing overhead.
"How has she changed?" Tracy asks, biting her lower lip. "Is she.. is she me? Did you.. did your predecessor make a copy of me somehow, like with Jason?"
There's a presence behind Tracy, though she didn't sense anyone walking up to her.
Feeling her neck tingle, Tracy nervously looks back over her shoulder to see if there's really something there.
Even though there are no clouds in the sky, the area seems somehow dimmer. Behind Tracy is a thinner, paler version of herself, dressed in fantastic armor. High level gear, she can't help but think - blue-glowing runes cover the flaring shoulderpads of some black metal, but the midriff is left bare, displaying a white belly with several piercings through the navel. An anachronic laser machine gun is slung over her back. She shimmers, as if she's not really there, one hand to the long cutlass on her hip, and behind her, ghostlier still, is Fuseli, the winged nightmare.
"I'm dreaming, aren't I?" says the other girl - Lady Tracer, she guesses. "Of her. My player." She looks Tracy over critically. "Somehow I thought you would be..."
"Younger?" Tracy replies, trying to finish the sentence in a way that's at least not too disappointing. "You dream of me?" she asks.
Lady Tracer's lips turn down a bit at the edge. "Not anymore. Not for a long time. It's just been me for a long time, me trying to be the Champion of the Light, me fighting against screaming hordes of the Dark, me looking for the Vampire Queen Sasha's minions and maybe someday I'll get to take her down once and for all." She looks reflective. "Maybe there's a poem in that."
Facing the image fully now, Tracy nods, and says, "So.. you really don't miss me then, I guess. You're better than I was. But you aren't me, just.. what I wanted you to be."
"Miss you?" Lady Tracer comes closer, taking her hand from her sword, laying her hands over Tracy's. Her breath should be warm but it feels chilly to Tracy. "I miss you more than the plant in boulder's shadow misses the Sun, more than the dying bird misses the winds... You gave me guidance, you chose the path and I only echoed what you were in the moments you couldn't be there yourself. But you never came back. What could I do?"
"I can't come back," Tracy claims, starting to tear up. "I tried, but.. I can't be your player anymore. Just someone in your shadow. I miss you, but I don't know if I can be with you without.. without feeling inadequate. I was very young back then, and certain things took on a lot of importance to me. I felt like you'd taken everything I worked to create and made it your own, and I just didn't fit in anymore. Everyone preferred you to me once you became the Champion. I just wanted to know if you'd.. grown up too. If you were a real person now."
"Everything I've ever done, I only did in your name. How can I take away what is yours?" Lady Tracer whispers, leaning close to Tracy, lips to her ear. They are nearly of a height, but Lady Tracer is a bit taller, a lot thinner. "I don't know what it means to be a real person. I only know that when I look at the dread Nightlord, the fell hordes under his command, I think, what would my player do, and I know that she would fight, and she would win."
Tracy really does start crying now, and has to wipe her eyes. "Maybe when this all settles, I can try again to play with you," she promises. "But.. I have to face the real Sasha first, probably soon. I need an edge against her, but I'm not sure what. I think she can turn invisible now."
The ghostly icon of Lady Tracer hugs her player quietly. She feels insubstantial. "That power among a myriad others, she can summon minions and she is a master of disguise and form. But I know you will meet her in fair battle, and you will triumph, my player."
Closing her eyes and hugging back as best she can, Tracy asks, "Could you defeat her? If we were together again? I can change shape now, and maybe match her Avatar like that. But I don't know what abilities you've gathered over the years."
Not-Kimon whispers softly, "She is not blocked from you. She has never been locked away, daughter of the Sorceress. You have chosen the path of the rogue. But your choice can be reversed."
Lady Tracer is still a moment. "I don't know. All I know is that if you don't try, you won't defeat her."
Fuseli whinnies, stamping at the ground. Its attitude conveys perfect faith in its Link. Of course she can defeat the Vampire Queen, if she can just bring her out into the open.
"Do I need to become Sasha in order to beat her?" Tracy asks out loud, but mostly seems to be asking herself. "Ever since I left you, Tracer, I feel like that's what I've been doing; trying to become the enemy. I don't think I want to though, even if it makes me her equal. But.. I wouldn't really be alone if I had you and Fuseli again.. I want you back. If I'm going to fight Sasha, then it should be with you.. it's what you've been working for too."
Lady Tracer lifts her head, her eyes looking into Tracy's. "If that's what you want... I have missed you so. Hold me close, let my icon be yours once more, my player." She closes her eyes, purses her lips.
Tracy pulls the insubstantial woman close, closes her eyes.. and kisses.. herself?
The world warps around Tracy -- or perhaps that's just the way it feels. The lips are ghostly and chill, but Lady Tracer's embrace grows warm and more substantial... Wait, that's the way the armor feels, snug and comfortable around her, not even the midriff feels exposed, thanks to the magical spells protecting her. She feels like she's finally come home. Fuseli, standing behind her, nuzzles her cheek lovingly.
And where Lady Tracer was, there is a ghostly black cat. It gives Tracy a look of ultimate disdain before stalking proudly into the distance.
The WHITE bows its head. "Welcome back, Champion of the Diadem," it says.
Tracer reaches up to rub the side of the Nightmare's muzzle. "It's time Queen Sasha felt the chill of her own dark soul," she says with a thin-lipped grin."
A storm approaches, Fuseli somehow conveys to Tracy though she doesn't say anything. On the horizon where the endless seas meet the sky, there are indeed dark clouds gathering.
"This world has served it's purpose, perhaps, and is encouraging us to move on to the next," Tracer notes, looking at the clouds. Turning back to not-Kimon, she asks, "Will the green vortex lead to the pages of the Gloaming, where my nemesis waits?"
"It is a source of power," the not-Kimon robot says in the WHITE's choir of voices. "The arcane heart of Tesliem beats with the essence of a thousand whales of the stars. You must sever the link or the Convergence will grow and the BLACK will reign over the Earth."
Tracer grins. "Tesliem," she says. "The Heart of Darkness itself. Will it be guarded by the usual Empire rabble, or by the legendary General Irongrip himself?"
Not-Kimon smiles faintly, or perhaps that's just the way it tilts its fox-shaped head. "You will meet a great and powerful enemy. So say the threads of fate." It looks toward the horizon. "The storm of the Convergence is growing. It will wash this universe into the sea of possibilities. Is there aught else you would ask?"
"What will happen to me when I step out of the convergence zone?" Tracy/Tracer asks. "Will I revert to my normal self again?"
The WHITE says quietly. "The universes are being brought together. The realm you call virtual will overlap with the realm of the Earth. You will remain Lady Tracer until you leave the locus of the Convergence or you end it."
"You should rejoin your friends," the not-Kimon says. "The storm looms. Beyond that path, a bridge will take you forward from here."
"Thank you, Lord White," Tracy says, and goes down on one knee before the robot. "I will strive to be the Champion in name and action, and preserve the separation of the realms, as my mother did before me."
The WHITE bows its head... But when Tracy looks up again, it is gone.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-05-08-out-of-the-frying-pan.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 2:00 PM Eastern
Storm clouds roll in slowly over the horizon, pressing unnaturally toward the Ivory Tower from all directions. It is as if the air were departing upward, vanishing into some unseen vortex. Below, the sea roils, serpents thrashing in the choppy waves that surge upward. Some of the lower-hanging towers, caught up in the waves, part with stately grace from the rest of the hanging buildings, bridges snapping like splinters, pillars and roofs sinking into the water.
Tracy and Cadena look up with surprise to see not-Kimon no longer there. He had been speaking with them just a moment ago, but in the blink of an eye, he's gone, and Jason is wearing what looks like his powered armor suit, except that it's golden, not grey.
"... That girl is crazy," says Jason, evidently finishing his conversation at the same time that Tracy and Cadena had ended theirs.
Inari's hand lingers on Jason's shoulderpad. "Maybe, but--" Her glance toward Tracy turns into a surprised look. It is Lady Tracer of House Trudeau that stands there, taller and slimmer than Tracy, and pale skinned beneath the elaborate black armor that marks her as a high-level character of the Diadem. An anachronic laser gatling rifle hangs from her back and a saber at her side, and a dark winged horse stamps its hoof behind her, its eyes glowing balefully.
Even Cadena appears to have changed from the moment he accepted the soul of his former master. The white glow around his body has intensified, and chains clink as he moves. His collar and boomhound armor are still there, but refashioned into a design that resembles Diadem armor, inlaid with glowing blue runes and what looks oddly like an amaranth flower design over his left shoulder.
"Trying to look prettier than Inari, Jason?" Tracer asks, then looks up toward the vortex in the sky. "We should get going."
"Now, see this is what your mother means about associating with the wrong crowd. Sure, it starts simple enough, you just listen to depressing music ... but soon you're dressing all doomy and not eating enough," Jason remarks without missing a beat when he spots Tracy. "I don't think your mother would approve."
"I have my mother's approval right here," the armored woman says, patting the laser Gatling gun.
"I bet it doesn't work," Jason remarks about the gun. "Or it shoots squids."
Lady Tracer mounts Fuseli, and says, "The inevitable has touched this realm, and draws it to its dark bosom. But we still have a quest, and should be on to it. White Cadena, what do your instincts tell you about the vortex above?"
White Cadena looks to Lady Tracer, and ducks its head in a bow. In a disembodied voice, the dog says, "This realm shall not last long and our fate is uncertain if we remain. The WHITE bids us to leave while we can. I have been shown the way to depart, to reach our next objective." With that, the dog dashes off, glowing brightly, animated chains trailing behind it.
"So, from this grave we boldly leap forward into Hell!" Tracer declares, and sets her nightmare galloping after Cadena.
"Do you want to ride with the GothQueen?" Jason asks Inari as he runs a quick-check on the jet systems of the variant power armor. "Or ... maybe not," he concludes as the pair run off. He shrugs to Inari, then heads after them on the ground. He's not going to jet off and leave Inari stranded.
Inari looks over at Jason. "I'm just expecting Randall and Akiko to show up in full costume now." She breaks into a sprint after him.
The bridge running out from the Ivory Tower turns gradually to office tiles. This corner of the Q-Link facility houses part of the primary injector, the device that maintains the Quantum Core in a high enough state of energy to bring the embedded matrix of entangled quantum dots into a plasma state, allowing data to be transmitted at extraordinary speed between here and the other Q-Links around the world. Or at least that's what it would do if it were working normally - here, the machinery isn't so much torn as warped, swelling into the depths of the strangely green-glowing vortex to become the containing wall of some massive reactor.
Seen through the lense of the vortex, windows in the reactor containment walls open onto some space-going whale, its single visible eye blind with pain as red lightning crackles over its carapace. This lightning appears to get channeled toward a massive refinery of some kind at the top of the bridge that runs through the core of the vortex, into the massive reactor that has taken the place of the Q-Core.
A pulse of unreality washes through the room. The security guard looks horrified as his Avatars LLC armor subtly reconfigures into the black of an Imperial guard's armor, with red trim. "What the-- this can't be happening! I left that life behind!"
Chain mail armor appears on Mark Berkowitz's body, not the fanciful design of the Diadem but the steel gray and black military style of the Gloaming, and a black recurved bow shimmers into place on his back. Seeing his opportunity to break loose, he rips loose from the guard's clutches and dives into the green vortex, disappearing from sight in a weird space-bending way.
Mike Dexter yelps as brown fur sprouts all over his body... And then he crumples to the ground, wracked with pain as he changes into the scrawny werewolf called Yappy. "Noooo! I don't want to die! It hurts! Oh my God, it hurts!"
RIU eeps and clings to Jason's neck - fortunately the powered armor collar saves him from the hazards of being choked by his own Avatar.
Drawing her saber, Tracer points it towards the guard. "What was the reason for bringing the Hunter and the Hound here?" she demands.
Jason rolls his eyes inside the armor. "I'm going to check on the wolf, keep an eye on the guard," he tells Inari. The armored human then makes his way over to Mike. "Uh, it probably hurts less if you don't try to fight it?" he offers a bit lamely. "It should be over soon and you're not going to die..."
The guard stammers. "You! You're a Lightsider! You're not supposed to be here--" He darts a look toward the door as if considering if he could get away. "When all the fuss started, HEL showed up, said bring them here, hold 'em 'til further notice."
"Cooling Touch of Metal!!" White Cadena cries out. The dog ignores the guard, instead rushing over toward the writhing shapeshifter. The animated chains curve and drift down, glowing gently as they rest upon the werewolf's form, bathing it in soft light.
"What do you know of the Tesliem extraction facility?" Tracer asks next, gesturing with her blade to the windowed reactor vaguely visible through the vortex.
Yappy writhes, his form floating off the ground as the chains lift him, but his face changes from anguish to surprise and relief. "That-- it doesn't hurt! Thank you!" In a few seconds, the change is complete, and a thin brown werewolf stands before them.
"Well, at least if a girlfriend ever called you a dog, now it's true, eh?" Jason jokes at Mike. "You'll get used to it. Probably. Inari can give you advice."
The chains withdraw from the werewolf, shrinking back to drift up weightlessly from the white dog's ankle-shackles. The dog then trots over to Fuseli and Tracer. White Cadena looks up, belatedly taking in Tracy/Tracer's transformation, then bows. "Champion."
"I, ah, it was years ago! Feels like forever," the guard says. "I was just one of the quintessence loading guards." He gestures toward the vortex. "You can see they've got one of the Leviathans in now, they're tapping its blood. Goes into the refinery, the primal essence goes into the Arcane Reactor, powers all the crazy experiments they've got going on like the golem project, the quintessence we ship out for refueling the Empire's ships, the dross goes into the Pit. It was a job with, uh, quite a bit of turnover so when the opportunity came up for reassignment somewhere else, I, um, jumped at it."
Inari considers Yappy. "A little underfed," she comments to Jason.
"Heh," Jason replies to that. His attention goes to the odd extraction-system. His armored fingers wiggle as he ponders ways to simply disrupt the whole thing, such as cutting extraction conduits or similar.
"If you'd rather not return to being a slave of the Empire, then you'd best hope for our success in shutting down the flow of quintessence," Tracer says, and then nods to Cadena. "We should destroy the refinery if possible, but may have to kill the Leviathan to provide a temporary disruption if we can't. The Golden Warrior can deal with the wanton destruction of equipment aspect."
Yappy looks woeful. "I'd have to get a girlfriend first," he admits. "I figured the best thing to do was to score a job, so I'd have some money so I could get some bling, so..." He shakes his head, rapidly in canid style so his cheekruffs floof out. "So you're here to break me out, right? Where are we going?"
"Deeper, unfortunately," Jason admits to Yappy as he's looking over the monstrous machine. "We have to shut this mess down. You don't have to help, but you are welcome to join us," he offers. "I'm Jason, we've met. That's Inari. Yes, the Inari. And ... the goth girl is Tracy and that's her dog, Cadena."
White Cadena bows its head to Tracer and Fuseli. "I am honored to fight by your side. It would appear that my ability to heal and to relieve pain works here. I have not yet tested my ability to shield from harm, but I fear the opportunity will soon arise."
"THE Inari?! I'm a big fan! Can you autograph my... my..." The werewolf looks down at his rather shredded clothes and his great lack of anything actually autographable. Somehow, autographing his hand while it's furry doesn't seem like it will work.
Inari rolls her eyes. "Is this how you're going to introduce me to all your friends?" she says to Jason, poking him in the side. Fortunately, his armor protects him from claw jabbings.
"Fuseli and I can be defense - I think we have the best chance of turning away any attackers. Jason is best suited - no pun intended - for breaking the extraction and refinement system. I'd like to have you with me, Cadena, in case things get violent. I don't want to kill anyone if I can avoid it. Inari is best at doing whatever she sees fit, as she is the most flexible. Yappy.. well, I don't know. He might work best at Jason's side. Someone has to watch for Mark the Hunter as well. That could be a good task for the wolf and the kitsune."
The guard backs away slowly toward the door behind him.
"It was faster than explaining," Jason complains. "Can you both keep watch? I'm going to try and blow this device by having it back-feed on itself. If we get company that'll be a bit of a problem. You also might want to secure that guard..."
White Cadena looks toward the guard. "My other self demands that I remember my obligations to Avatars LLC personnel. Before you leave, sir, I must inquire - are you injured, and do you require any assistance?"
"I, uh, I'm fine! I'm just following my orders, which are to evacuate from here in the event of imminent explosive hazards," The guard hammers the 'Open' button on the door.
"Then please carry on," White Cadena says.
Yappy's ears go flat at the idea of going further into the maelstrom that seems to be wrecking the place. Then perk again. "Wow, feels funny to have ears that can do that! But, um. I'd just be a liability. You guys all look like you know what you're doing. Me, I'm no hero!"
"We're not really heroes either, but we manage. Have more faith in yourself. Besides, you might be stuck like that if we don't shut this stuff down," Jason tells Yappy.
"If we can get control of the system, I could probably fix you," Jason adds. "I just need access to the quantum control systems."
The rangy wolf gives this a little thought, then asks Tracer, "You seem like you might know... Do girls like werewolves?"
"It is your choice," Tracer tells the werewolf. "We are all doomed in the end, after all. It is how we face our doom that makes us what we are - and impresses the girls. If you stay out here, you may be safe, but I don't know if you'll be stuck as you are or not. In which case.. you'd best make a good impression on Inari, in case she needs a hairy backup dancer!"
"If you come with us though, you might get a chance to bite Sasha, who set the Wild Hunt on you," Tracy offers with a smile.
The door clicks open. The guard rushes through, and a moment later, the door shuts again. clack
Apparently Tracy added just the right amount of appeal to that smile because Yappy looks as if he's head over heels for her. "I, um... You do raise a good point there, miss. And may I say, you cut a great figure in that armor, too! It's got just the right amount of je ne sais quoi!" His pick-up lines could use work, however. "All right, I guess I'm in!"
"Shall we then?" Tracer asks, from the edge of the vortex.
Fuseli snorts.
Jason tests the jets briefly on his suit. "Well, I'm going in. The longer we wait, the harder this will be to undo," he says. Without further ado, he bursts the jets and sends himself into the green vortex!
White Cadena regards Yappy with an ever-so-slight eyebrow quirk, but otherwise says nothing about the shameless fawning. Instead, the dog nods sympathetically to Fuseli, and focuses upon the rift. "At your command, Champion."
Nodding to Cadena and Fuseli and Yappy, Tracer marches into the green distortion behind Jason.
The black jumpsuited golden vixen lowers her sunglasses and draws her laser sword, but does not ignite it. She sets off after her powered armor boyfriend.
With Tracy gone, Yappy's enthusiasm drops noticably. "If she weren't so pretty..." He scrunches up his courage and runs in after Cadena and Fuseli.
The white tiles underfoot turn subtly into gunmetal gray flooring, and hazy shapes take form in the mists of the green vortex. There are klaxons going off, and shouts in the distance. Up ahead, a massive explosion causes part of the room to collapse. The dark, somehow unclean metal shape of the Tesliem experimental chamber takes shape around them.
It looks as if a team of wild howler monkeys in powered armor have been through, judging from all the destruction that's been wreaked upon the chamber. Sparks fly from various consoles, and one of the supersoldier cyborg prototypes lies crumpled on the floor. The space where the other one should have been is ominously empty. The main exit from the room is blocked, but there are doors in the lower half of the room which proclaim 'SUPERSOLDIER TESTING FACILITY'.
"Well, this looks like it'll be fun," Jason remarks grimly as he charges ahead. He flicks his right hand as he goes. Segments along the wrist of the armor separate and extend outward. Relays click and the extrusions spin up in a whirr of metal and a crackle of electricity. Within moments a blue halo of 'Saint Elmo's Fire' whirls around his wrist. "RIU, stay alert. I doubt we are alone here," he tells the dragon.
RIU takes wing and hovers in place just behind Jason! It beep-eeble-doops, scanning in all directions.
One element of Tracy still finds it way to Lady Tracer - her lips betray her thought processes. "Clearing the debris can take time and energy we'd rather not spare," she says. "We should see if the door to the testing area is clear and leads us out."
Yappy's fur sticks up. "I have a bad feeling about this," he says, peering over the edge of the catwalk. "There's still blood on this equipment."
"I am unfamiliar with the layout of this complex," White Cadena confesses, rushing to keep pace with Tracer and Fuseli.
The golden vixen ignites her laser sword as Jason readies his armor's zapper. A thin red beam extends from the hilt of her Naginata Blade, making not a sound. "Empire style mad science. Wasn't the General's deal that he had a brain because of the chance he could be thrown into one of these... Chopper-slicers? I wouldn't touch them if I were you."
"One of the experiments likely went berserk," Tracer suggests as she looks for a non-blood-covered surface to jump down to over the edge of the catwalk.
Through the debris to the west, they can make out the sounds of high-energy weapons being fired, swords clashing against metal, and shouted battlecries.
"RIU, scout the lower area," Jason tells the little dragon. "No point in jumping to our deaths."
"The forces of Light may be attacking too," Tracer offers once it's clear there's a battle going on outside.
The little dragon dives down and beneath the catwalk!
Glancing at Yappy, Tracer has a thought - and produces her communication orb. "Aldestre of the King's Explorers, heed my call if you are able," she recites to it.
The white dog, apparently not so bold as to take his chances simply leaping off the catwalk and into the space below, dashes along the catwalk in the direction of the observation deck, away from the debris-choked passage.
The minidragon scouts around. The debris fallen from the ceiling in the southern half of the room offers a moderate slope for getting down to the medical floor, or the more adventurous could jump to the top of the equipment, then down, if they were willing to take a chance that the machinery might not spring to life suddenly and grab them.
"I think Mark's brain was stuck in one of the huge bodies. We had best keep our distance from that equipment," Jason tells the others. "And while I could also probably get the other soldier running, we're decidedly out of brains to stick in it. And .. I doubt any of you will volunteer. Safest way down is the collapsed rock pile.."
Yappy looks decidedly ill. "This guy has STITCH marks. No way is that kind of body going to help me get a girl." He glances toward Tracy. "Unless she has really strange taste?"
White Cadena continues to dash along the catwalk, reaching the outer observation deck ring, taking in a view of the Tesliem Lava Core while rushing past. The dog then works its way in a curving circuit along the ring, making it to a slope of debris leading down to the main floor - but very decidedly keeping very clear of anything that might be the least bit related to "brain extraction."
Tracer just shakes her head and purses her lips to the werewolf, while waiting for a response on her orb. "Fuseli, fly to down to the door and stand guard until we get there," she tells her steed.
"She isn't worth losing your head over, Yap," Jason tells the werewolf. He heads after Cadena, choosing to take the debris way down which keeps him away from the brain grabbers.
Following after Jason, Tracer also looks for any signs that Mark really was zombified.. like a black blow or torn chain mail lying around near the machines.
The white dog glances up as it sees Jason tracing the same route. "You might want to spare a glance into the refinery as you go past. I hope you'll be able to make more sense of it than I can."
Inari drops down lithely from the catwalk. Fuseli takes up guard at the door... But it seems ominously quiet, save for the sounds of distant battle.
Yappy looks about, then decides to try jumping down himself.
Jason pauses mid-step as he peers out into the refinery. "No, it couldn't be ... " he mutters. "That's ... bad. How, what?"
As the brown-furred werewolf gets to the edge of the railing, he slips on what looks like a patch of oil. "What-- uh, oh, aiyiyiee!" His arc through the air is decidedly ungraceful, but more importantly, headed straight for an eager-looking collection of surgical machinery.
White Cadena, at the same instant, is already bounding under the catwalk, rushing to intercept the falling werewolf, swirling chains reaching out as if to try to catch the creature on their own. The white dog body-blocks the humanoid, intercepting him mid-air, and they both fall to a tumble to the main floor walkway, clear of any eager-looking sharp-edged machinery.
"Whoa-- whew!" The brown werewolf pants, catching his breath from where he's wrapped his arms around the dog. "That was close! I saw my life flashing before my eyes there. ... I had no idea I was such a cute puppy."
"This isn't the time for puppy-playing," Tracer notes, having only seen the tumbling around part. "And no going after any bones we come across, either, or I'll find a newspaper," she adds in passing.
Yappy looks hangdog.
"Just to cause more worry," Jason remarks as he follows Tracy, "I think General Ironfist is waiting for us ahead ... and he looked very brain-extracted and large."
White Cadena's chains return to their stand-by drift. The dog gets back up, shaking itself out, and trots over to catch up with Tracer, leaving Yappy to tend to his own dignity.
This causes Tracer to nearly trip, she stops so hard. "The General?" she asks. "Maybe we can get some reinforcements by then."
It looks as if there's a simple lever to be pulled next to the door in order to open them. There's only one problem with this... It's meant to be pulled by someone 20 feet tall.
"Wait here," Jason tells the others, "If I kill myself doing this, I expect you to save the world ... and write something nice about me on my gravestone." The armored human then ignites his flight systems to fly up and push the lever!
Inari smirks at the sad puppy eyes that Yappy is giving Tracy, but is distracted by Jason's flying maneuver. "Are you sure that's--" FOOM! "A good idea?"
"Not at all!" Jason calls back.
While Jason has hit the lever successfully, it seems to be made of doughtier stuff than his boot jets were meant to achieve. It may take more force.
While Jason works on the lever itself, Tracer walks over to inspect the actual door and see how tough it might be.
"Oh come on," Jason complains as he works the jets, apparently unable to find just the right angle to achieve the force necessary to move the lever. After a few more tries, he grumbles and slides down the lever like a fire pole.
Warning labels are festooned over the chamber: "GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS!" "DO NOT ATTACK THE DOCTORS." "SERVE THE EMPIRE - DESTROY HER ENEMIES!" And of course, the ever popular, "EXPLOSIVE HAZARD - NO SMOKING WITHIN 30 FEET."
This last appears to be positioned near the debris that covers the southern half of the room.
The doors are imposingly tough, made of what could be battleship armor.
"So, is the lever jammed?" Tracer asks of Jason.
"It's just stubborn. I think I'll call it Tracy," Jason remarks as he walks back across the room, heading for the downed super soldier!
White Cadena suggests, "As a backup plan, we could return to the upper floor debris, see if we can get the attention of the combatants outside, and beg or goad them into blasting a way through the blockage? Of courage, the problem would then remain of how said combatants might react to our mixed group...." The dog trails off, however, letting that thought go as it appears that Jason has some other sort of plan in mind. The dog, for whatever reason, either lacks the courage or has the sense not to inquire further about its particulars.
"Before Dr. Frankenstein gets his mojo going, how about you try leaning on the lever," Tracer whispers to Fuseli.. who is, after all, a bit more massive than Jason was.
"I have a cunning plan!" Jason declares, "Also crazy and dangerous. But what else is new?"
Inari eyes the lever, then Jason. "I have a bad feeling about this," she says.
Fuseli snorts. It's a very particular kind of snort.
Rolling her eyes, Tracer whispers to the nightmare, "Rear up, put your weight on it. Push, don't pull. Or.." Turning towards Cadena, she asks, "Still got that line in your armor, Cadena?"
The dark warhorse snorts disdainfully, but trots up to the lever. It awaits Cadena's response.
White Cadena looks momentarily distracted, ears twitching, with a faint look of annoyance, as if listening to something no one else can hear. The dog snaps out of it at Tracer's voice. "Yes, Champion, I believe I do. Are you following that suggestion, then?" The dog begins fishing through the pouches of the altered armor.
Jason stops before the downed behemoth. He almost tries to pop his knuckles, then thinks better of it because, well, armor. "Time to violate several laws of nature," he declares as he crouches down near the cybernetic componentry embedded in the super-soldier. "Now .... where is that neural to electrical bridge..."
"The line is for a different backup plan," Tracer says. "Fuseli is going to throw his weight around, but if that doesn't work we can use the line to pull the lever with our combined strength."
Inari positions herself near Jason, to be ready in case any of the machinery comes to life and tries to do... unpleasant things to him.
White Cadena winces slightly. "I hadn't expected you to use Fuseli for ... oh." Something seems to dawn on the dog. "Right." The dog fishes out the cord, and trots over with it to Tracer.
While Jason gets the prototype back into working order, Fuseli rears up impressively and then slams its hooves into the column! Sparks fly from the glowing horseshoes nailed to its hooves. Slowly, then with inexorable force, the lever tilts until it slams against the far end of its traverse. The doors open into the next room.
"Good boy!" Tracer says, as she rewards Fuseli by stroking the nightmare's gaunt neck. If she likes emaciated looking horses, maybe emaciated looking werewolves do stand a chance.
"Oh the brain case is connected to the neural inductor," Jason sings away as he works. "Oops, he won't need that..."
Yappy brushes himself up, trying to restore some dignity, and stands up. "Hey, you got it open! Great, now we can... charge into impending disaster?" He eyes the room revealed, which manages to look ominous despite being made mostly of white tiles. Perhaps it's the hatches on the side, floor, and ceiling, that look as if they're intended to open and provide surprises.
White Cadena tucks the cord back away into its pouch, looking relieved and proudly pleased at Fuseli's accomplishment.
"Do you smell fresh blood out there?" Tracer whispers to Yappy, coming up next to him and patting him on the back.
"Okay, right, so, hmm," Jason says as he closes up one of the access panels. "We had better stand back," he then tells Inari and heads quickly back towards the others.
White Cadena trots up to the door and takes a whiff, then winces. "It smells like burnt ... materials of Imperial origin."
Inari stands well back.
Yappy stands back too... But near enough to the surgery bay that it whines and turns his way. Blades whirr and clippers buzz.
Tracer turns to look back at the fallen cyborg, then looks at Jason. "So.. you're sure you can control Jason Junior if it wakes up?" she asks.
"Come stand next to me, Wile E.," Tracer suggests to Yappy.
Yappy scootches over!
"You sure now how deflate my plans," Jason complains to Tracy when he rejoins the others, "However, I will have my revenge!" Apparently this involves closing his eyes and looking deep in thought. The behemoth on the floor twitches. The groan it makes is ... well, disturbing is putting it mildly. It pushes itself upright and with awkward, jerking, movement lumbers towards the door! The creature groans and moans, "Dooo the maaaash." It then proceeds to ... dance. Well, if you can call it dancing. When something that big shimmies its butt it tends to look a bit ridiculous.
White Cadena recoils slightly in horror.
Tracer puts both hands over her mouth. No, laughing would just not fit her. "Okay," she says through her fingers. "Can you send it out to clear any traps for us?"
Spotlights click on automatically, illuminating the revived supersoldier prototype. As Jason perfects his control, its movements become smoother until it's executing a complex dance routine... And the spotlights, incredibly, switch to different colors as it moves back and forth, red, then blue, then green. At the end it stands and salutes the others, then resumes its normal standing pose, a giant apparently humanoid monstrosity dressed in an armored Imperial uniform.
Yappy applauds! "That was awesome!"
Inari gives Jason a sidelong look.
"Braaaaiiins," the monster moans and marches forward so Jason can send it into the target room. "It could have been worse," Jason remarks while concentrating, "I could make him swish..."
"It has more rhythm than you do, at least," Tracer notes to Jason.
As the robot steps onto the clearly outlined gray square in the next room, the doors begin shutting! A stentorian male voice says, "Automated supersoldier testing will now begin! Soldier, turn to your right and take your rifle from the chamber that has just been opened."
"Hurry!" Tracer says, and dashes through the door before it closes, then immediately moves to the side opposite the rifle closet.
The white dog recovers at Tracer's command (after taking in the others' muted reactions to this ... abomination's antics), and dashes after her.
Fuseli dashes through after his mistress, followed closely by Inari. Yappy is a bit slower on the uptake. "Wait, I heard 'rifle'--"
Jason has to open his eyes and focus on himself. "Come on, RIU, we've got to go through," he tells the little dragon and runs for the door!
The doors slam shut and seal themselves shut. There's no lever on this side; however there are what look like glazed bulletproof windows in the wall to the north, high overhead. From this side they are mirror-like so it's impossible to see what's on the other side.
The male voice repeats, "Soldier, turn to your right and take your rifle! Testing cannot proceed until you have taken your rifle."
"Maybe we should all head to the exit before I have MeatMan pick up the gun," Jason suggests to the others.
White Cadena volunteers, "I can take the lead, in case of any traps."
There are burn marks on the northern half of the room, mostly on the far wall. Doors appear to lead to the west, but are locked securely shut - if they were open, it appears they'd slide into the wall.
Mysterious looking hatches are recessed into the flat white tiles. While there are no obvious things to be shot right now, perhaps these are how such devices will be introduced.
"Or ... maybe this has to pass whatever horrible things happen in here before the doors open," Jason concludes as he eyes the sealed door. "I suggest we hide in the closet where the gun is. It's probably out of the line of fire..."
Jason, in fact, heads that way.
The rifle in the closet is immense, probably far too large for anyone not of extraordinary strength to carry and certainly too large to be wielded comfortably. It appears to be some kind of energy arquebus, requiring the chamber to be charged before it can be fired once.
"All of us in that little space?" Tracer asks, then sighs and gets on Fuseli. "You're sure you can keep the door open?"
"It's either I try or we die. Take your pick," Jason remarks as he looks for an access panel to the closet door controls.
"Okay.. Inari, Yappy.. you may want to ride with me. Cadena can fit between Fuseli's legs once we're inside," Tracer suggests.
Inari looks less than thrilled with the prospect. "Remind me, why are we doing this?" she asks as she walks toward Jason.
"I respect the desire for caution," White Cadena notes, "but I humbly request that we consider the value of haste, given the changing nature of the landscape that we have observed. I would also suggest we risk having at least one of our number outside the closet, in case opening it proves to be a greater challenge than anticipated. I notice a distinct lack of convenient handles and other controls in this room."
The voice says, "Soldier, this is your first day in your new life as a servant of the Empire! It would be a great shame if you were to be marked down for failure to obey the orders of your superiors. Pick up the weapon from the closet to your right!"
"Well, I'm not sure I want to be outside when this test starts," Jason admits to Inari, "But if there is no damage on this end and if we assume they don't want to break a newly made soldier, then it may be safe enough to remain outside." So, Jason heads back out and leans against Inari slightly. "But the downside is I don't get to use the line 'So, come here often'? when we weer crammed in the closet..." He closes his eyes again and focuses on MeatMan, trying to instruct him to go get the rifle.
Inari leans back against the powered armor. "Mm, you can use that line some other time," she says.
The supersoldier prototype marches the closet obediently and lifts the rifle. As it moves back to its previous position, the closet doors begin shutting again.
"Yappy, ride with me anyway," Tracer says. "I don't want you to have another accident."
"Well done! We will now test your accuracy. Begin charging your weapon. Target number one will appear... now." The voice clicks off, and a hatch on the far side of the room opens. A... large cube rises slowly through it, about thirty feet on a side.
"Is that target supposed to be a barn? It's big enough," Tracer notes.
Jason, interfaced to MeatMan, tries to figure out how to charge the gun up before taking aim at the huge cube.
It appears simple enough - pull the lever on the (oversized) rifle, then aim and pull the trigger, then the firing action will reset the lever.
The rifle hums as it warms up. The supersoldier prototype takes careful aim at the cube... Then fires! A giant glowing projectile, brighter than the Sun, slams across the room-- and into the far wall, just narrowly missing it. Flames wash against the back of the room. "Try again, soldier! We expect better from you."
"Think it would know the difference if you just mimed shooting with the rifle, and had RIU blast the target instead?" Tracer asks.
'MeatMan' grunts a bit at that and yanks the 'reloading' lever before taking aim again at the huge cube.
It takes three shots total, but the supersoldier prototype manages to clip the side of the cube! It explodes into a thousand tiny sharpnel.
"Well done, soldier! As you can see, we demand pinpoint accuracy from our soldiers, and we have high hopes that you will live up to our exacting requirements," the voice says. "Commencing test two... Now."
A different hatch opens to the left side of the room. A blue beam appears washing across the room, pale and without force, heading to an opened hatch on the other side. A similar target cube floats into the room slowly.
"Moving target test.. I hope it's the last," Tracer complains.
Blam! The shot goes wild. The cube floats leisurely out of the room, then returns back the way it came.
"This is annoying," Jason mutters as he tries to take aim again.
Yappy stays close to Tracy as instructed, a big grin on his muzzle.
The voice starts to get sarcastic as the soldier prototype continues to miss. "If this test is too difficult for you, soldier, perhaps we should try a different brain--" and then a shot slams dead home into the middle of the cube! It explodes into more flinders, littering the chamber.
"Excellent shot, soldier! For your third test, the target will now shoot back. Destroy the target while advancing through the room, then exit through the door to the left," the voice says.
"Okay, I really think we should do the shooting ourselves this time," Tracer notes.
A hatch opens in the top of the room. This time, it's not a cube, but a robot sphere made of some kind of gray metal. Lights glow on its surface as it surveys the room, a green scanning laser swepping from left to right.
'MeatMan' dutifully starts a slow march across the floor, taking aim at the orb and firing!
"Staying tightly packed together is likely to present too tempting a target," White Cadena notes. "Your orders, Champion?"
"Bzzt! Multiple targets identified. Selecting random target," the sphere drones. It hovers in place, but moves at random to the left and right.
Inari startles as the sphere appears. "What the-- Jason, get behind something!"
"Stay behind the.." Tracer starts to say, until she hears the robot speak. Instead, she urges Fuseli forward to try and distract the bot.. and get close enough to attack it. "Hang on, Yappy!"
The supersoldier prototype fires! The shot goes wild however.
The sphere turns toward the side of the supersoldier prototype, perhaps singling out Inari for having spoken. A low tone begins to rise as its weapon projector charges.
"Inari!" White Cadena cries out, leaping away from Fuseli's side. Chains swirl around the dog as it leaps behind the super-soldier, to push Inari out of the sphere's line of fire!
"Oh now you've done it," Jason growls as his eyes snap open, "You do not target Inari!" He raises his gauntlet-clad hand and takes aim at the projector array on the orb. Energy crackles around it, followed by the scent of ozone.
The supersoldier pulls the lever back as Jason takes aim, but takes no other action, waiting silently as the arquebus charges.
The powered armor suit takes aim, but what should have been a perfect shot gets spoiled as the sphere darts to the side at just the wrong time!
Blue lightning cracks into the far side of the room, making a teeny tiny scorch mark.
Carrying Tracer and Yappy, Fuseli rushes to the left side of the giant. The nightmare then rears up, and slams his front hooves onto the floor. Sparks fly, and chain of jagged, purple-black glowing cracks fan out over the floor from the impact, passing under the robotic sphere before erupting upwards in eldritch flames!
The sphere darts away from the cracks! "Error! Error! Targets using unauthorized weapons of mass destruction!"
But not quite far enough - flames gout from one of the cracks and wash across the side of the sphere, causing it to spark and fly erratically. "Error! Error! Error!"
Yappy clings for dear life to Tracy as she charges forth!
Inari oofs under Cadena, then pulls herself to her feet. "Thanks for the help, Cadena," she says, taking cover behind the supersoldier prototype. "Jason! Get him behind Mr. Meat!"
The announcer's voice says, "Supersoldier! Destroy the target and advance into the next testing chamber, for the glory of the Empire!"
The armed target sphere wobbles around dizzily. "Systems compromised! Rebooting..."
Grumbling something about robots, Tracer slides Mother's Approval off her back and starts mounting it to Fuseli's saddle.
"Whirr. Reboot in progress." It steadies and appears to be doing a self-test of some kind.
Inari tenses behind the supersoldier, ready to spring into action.
RIU darts up into the air, hissing at the nasty ol' sphere thing!
Jason hurries himself to join Inari behind MeatMan. "This is insane," he complains to Inari as he closes his eyes and focuses in on their cyborg-zombie to take another shot at the ball!
The golden vixen looks relieved. "We're running through the Empire of Stars' stomping grounds. Things are normally pretty insane around here."
Pow! The ball smacks right into the sphere as it emits the words, "Reboot com--" KAPOW!
Metal shrapnel flies around the test chamber, leaving quite a mess.
"Target destroyed! Good work. We'll make a supersoldier out of you yet! Please proceed to the Environmental Extremes Testing Chamber," the voice says.
"The phrase 'out of the frying pan' comes to mind," White Cadena says, trotting to the door.
"Right, so note to self, do not use the Empire as a date spot," Jason grumbles. He now has to alternate between sending the soldier towards the exit and following after it as it moves.
The next chamber boasts a similar white tiles design to the target range, but the tiles have been removed from the middle of the room in favor of rows and rows of force projectors. In the first zone, jets fire gouts of what looks like lava or plasma to the ceiling in sequence; in the second zone, outlets in the ceiling wash sheets of cold air downward, cold enough that ice crystals form in midair and crash to the floor with a constant tinkling noise. The third zone is hazy and filled with swirling poisonously green vapors.
A sealed exit at the far right side of the room reads, "TO DEFENSES TESTING ROOM." High up in the walls to the right are smoked glass panels that look onto an overhead corridor. While they're normally mirrored, every now and then a flash light and an explosion overhead illuminates shadowy forms in what looks like a firefight of some kind.
"Well, that looks like fun. My vote is to destroy the projectors. I'm not just walking through that," Jason remarks as he surveys the grim chamber.
"Maybe we should have used the giant to clear the debris from the other door," Tracer mutters.
RIU flutters overhead, looking decidedly nervous about the 'environmental extremes' ahead.
Inari agrees with Jason. "I'm not sticking my fluffy tail into that!"
"Hm," Jason says as he looks up at the projectors and tries to see if there are any control lines leading to them.
White Cadena says, "I hear the voices of Light-aligned forces on the other side. They might be confused by our 'escort mission,' but perhaps we could see if any of them have powers to protect against environmental effects? That is, if we could get their attention from here."
"RIU, do you feel brave enough to climb up into the projectors?" Jason asks the little dragon. "Alternatively, I could have MeatMan shoot them..."
"Do we have any powers that could be used to amplify sound?" White Cadena inquires.
RIU shivers, but gives Jason a brave little nod.
Tracer takes out her communication orb again to see if Aldestre has responded yet. "I might be able to contact them," she says.
Inari shakes her head. "I can't project an illusion that far away," she admits. "Not through the glass."
The orb flickers, a tiny light pulsing at its center. It appears Tracy does have mail!
"Aha," the armored girl says, and activates the message.
"Well, I'll send RIU up to see if he can get safely into the projectors if we can't come up with a better plan," Jason offers.
"Tracy, is that you? Word on the street is that Avatars is under some kind of DOS attack," Aldestre says, his message recorded. "I'm only logging in to check my messages, I hear that things are a real mess out in Tesliem, and after what happened to some poor guys who were logged in when the last sector went kablooie... but I'll stay online for a bit longer. Send me a ping."
Tracer replies, "Adam, your brother and I are in Tesliem right now. There's a group of heroes nearby, and I need to know who they are so I can contact them. Do you know who is leading a Supersoldier Raid right now?"
From the background in the message, it looks as if Aldestre is playing it safe in the Tasavalta area... Or maybe he's hoping that lightning strikes twice in the same spot.
The orb lights again. Aldestre's eyes focus on Tracy. "My bro-- you found Mike? What's he doing there? Can I talk to him?" He pauses as she continues. "Give me a min, I'll check!"
Yappy leans over Tracy's shoulders. "What the... That's my bro's voice," Yappy says. He pulls a face. "Hey! Bro! I'm a wolf now!"
"Things are ... complicated," Tracer adds, shifting the orb so Yappy is in the pickup. "Once we take care of things, Mike should be back to normal."
"There is no guarantee of that," Jason remarks.
"Only I'm allowed to be dark and depressing here, Jason," Tracer notes to the armored man. "Unless you want to paint that suit of yours black?"
Aldestre pulls a face. "Now I'm sure you were adopted," he says to Yappy. "But I like the new looks, it's a definite improvement. Um. All right, Solanca's in the raid. I'll patch you through to him."
White Cadena looks wary of the flames, but paces around, inspecting the surroundings, sniffing here and there, examining anything especially that isn't just a flat, featureless surface.
A silver-haired man in leather armor of a Diadem design appears next to Aldestre in the orb, but the background behind him is definitely that of the Tesliem access corridor. "Solanca, King's Explorers. We're in the middle of taking down the doorman, but I can spare a moment. To whom am I speaking?"
The doors to the target range close silently behind them.
White Cadena suddenly barks, as it turns to look back to the target chamber. "Mr. Edwards! Access hatches for cleaning drones!"
"This is Lady Tracer of House Trudeau," Tracer announces to Solanca. "And I need your aid. A new menace has risen, the ultimate Imperial Supersoldier: General Irongrip. No Hero of the Light has faced him yet in battle."
Jason blinks. "Access hatches?" he asks as he heads over to Cadena to see what he's talking about. That may be a lot safer to send RIU in...
Behind Solanca, voices complain, "Stay on target... Steady... We're losing this!" "It's the lag, it's impossible to keep the beams on target when everything feels like swimming through water!" "Something's seriously borked, are you guys seeing what looks like some kind of modern office building? I'm hearing from my sister, she got sidetracked and now she's looking at this big ladybug robot with four legs..."
Jason is quick enough to see cleaning robots scurrying across the target range, cleaning up the debris, but then the giant doors hiss shut.
"They're cleaning up the mess from the destroyed target," White Cadena explains to Jason. "That's how it stays so nearly spotless clean for the next test run!"
"Aaand, the doors just closed," Jason grumbles. He would facepalm if he wasn't wearign a helmet.
The white dog looks dejected, and quietly resumes exploring for anything else that might be of use.
Solanca looks skeptical. "Lady, I do an Irongrip raid every other week--" "Wait, is that the Lady Tracer? Give her an invite! She's great!" Other people crowd around the orb. Behind them, someone screams, "AUGH!" and a giant armored bear goes flying across the room. "Get your tails back in gear!" Solanca roars.
"We could perhaps make a mess that is in need of cleaning, but I suspect it will prompt no reaction if there is a super soldier still present in the room," White Cadena adds, while snuffling around.
RIU beeps! at Jason consolingly, cuddling around his left ear.
Jason grumbles. Getting impatient, he tries to link up with the cyborg and take aim at the flame projectors...
"Yes, the Lady Tracer, Champion of Light, and all that," Tracer says. "You need to keep working towards the refinery, things should be more stable there. Stay out of any areas that look unfamiliar - there is a massive illusion enchantment at work. And if you make your way up the corridor further, check the floor. There should be a tunnel crossing underneath. If you detect it, try to blast a hole through to it. I'm in the Testing Chambers, and that will let my group get through."
The supersoldier cyborg levels its arquebus and takes aim. KaBOOM! Several of the energy projectors explode, turning into so much shrapnel. "Warning! Unauthorized destruction of testing room equipment detected," a mechanical voice complains. The male announcer orders, "Supersoldier! You are to make your way through the environmental hazards ahead. Do not attempt to destroy them or punitive force will be applied."
White Cadena instinctively hits the deck, then gets up. "Well! That at least creates a mess." He looks around for any hatches that might be useful for little cleaning robots to pop out of, just in case they don't wait for completion of the test.
Turning aside from the orb for a moment, Tracer suggests, "Jason, if you get your abomination through to the other side, maybe the obstacles will just deactivate."
"Or, we might get another shot at interrupting the cleaning process and exploiting any access hatches," White Cadena adds.
"Well, we could walk under his legs," Jason suggests and motions towards the cyborg. "Or, hm. Who here wants to look through the glass?" he asks. "MeatMan could lift someone up to it."
The white dog paws at some of the debris, checking to see if it's too hot to touch before attempting to collect any samples.
"Or, Inari could start cutting out sections of the wall with her laser sword," Tracer offers next.
Aldestre whispers to Solanca, who responds, "All right, very good. I'll send a fire team back to the crossing tunnel. I'm looking forward to working with you, Lady Tracer." Distractedly, he calls to the others, "Throw a heal on Small, get him back into action! Ton Weigh, Phosphemus, head back up the tunnel, twenty meters, I need a hole in the floor."
"Screw punitive damages," Jason remarks and has the golem take aim at another set of projectors.
"May the Light guide and protect you," Tracer tells Solanca. "Also, don't attack our werewolf or pet supersoldier."
"... You have a pet supersoldier?" Solanca swears, "By the Sun! Where do I go to get neat toys like that?"
"I'll tell you later," Tracer says, wincing from the blast of the heavy rifle.
White Cadena braces, and checks to see if the destruction allows him to get any closer to the wall with the observation window.
The supersoldier dutifully plugs away at the projectors, over the protests and complaints of the announcer.
"Warning! Projector damage now at 20%," a mechanical voice says. "Initiating armed repair robot response."
"Inari, if an access hatch opens and deathbots starts spilling out, would you be a dear and try to disable it so it stays open?" Tracer asks.
The energy arquebus smoulders from the efforts of steady fire... But a path has been cleared through the projectors to the side of the room next to the observation window. Spiderweb cracks run through it, presumably from where the last shot hit the frost projector next to it.
"Can anyone help me get up to the window?" White Cadena asks. "It looks like it's cracked. Perhaps we can break through and find a way to disable these infernal contraptions!"
A distant muffled thump comes from the corridor overhead and to the right.
"Sending MeatMan to help you, Cadena," Jason tells the avatar-dog-thing. True to his word, the abomination trundles towards the observation window.
The white dog rushes over to catch up with the super-soldier, daringly putting itself within reach of the monstrosity.
A hatch opens in the far wall. What looks like a giant bulldozer moves slowly outward, protected from attacks by the giant shovel in front of it.
MeatMan picks Cadena up and lifts him towards the window. And in a true fit of odd, the supersoldier says, "I will love him and hug him and call him George..."
Inari looks worried at the hatch opening. "That thing's pretty big."
"Okay, that isn't good," Tracer notes at the sight of the tank. "But then.. it probably can't dodge either." She turns the laser cannon to face the robot, but doesn't fire.
White Cadena's chains draw inward, as the white dog seems very anxious to keep well away from the flames still emanating from the surviving projectors.
As another explosion makes the corridor behind it visible, from his new vantage point Cadena can make out the forms of two men drawing what looks like glowing runes onto a crater in the floor. "Clear!" They run back, and then the first man shouts a command word. The runes explode, opening a hole to the tunnel beneath!
To the right, down the hallway, it appears that the large armored bear has returned to service, wrestling and swatting at some giant bulbous robot that emits sparks and periodically fires arcing lasers across the room. To avoid these, the raiding party is crouching down behind various fallen pieces of debris, or occasionally rotating out into the corridor to catch their breath, and every now and then, a woman dressed in white robes, her head that of a unicorn, steps out to channel healing energies into the bear.
"Cadena, can you break the glass? We can climb up MeatMan and exit through the window," Jason suggests.
The white dog blinks. "They said 'Small'?" With greater urgency, as soon as the dog is within reach of the window, it hurls itself against the glass, trying to hit with its side and back, rather than taking too much glass to the face.
As Cadena throws his armored weight against the window, it shatters inward! "Whoa!" complains the nearby man. "Incoming glass!"
The white dog immediately casts about, looking for any sorts of controls that might seem relevant to the environmental testing chamber - or, failing that, any large shards of glass to knock free to widen the opening through the window to make room for Fuseli and the others to get through.
The repair robot moves fully into the Environmental Extremes Testing Chamber. With a clack, it extends a tiny little camera-arm that sweeps the room until it identifies the supersoldier.
"Right, so everyone up MeatMan and out through the window!" Jason orders. "I'll send him through the rest afterward."
Spotting the camera, Tracer shifts the aim of her laser slightly towards that side of the shovel and fires off a quick 3-shot burst!
The laser gatling whines as the charging chambers spin, each one charging in a second as the previous one discharges! The camera-arm sizzles, then retracts sans camera. "Warning! Damage detected to Armed Repair Response Robot. Beginning deployment of Armed Repair Response Robot Repair Robot."
"Now this is just getting silly," JAson remarks. He waves for Inari to follow and heads towards MeatMan and the observation window. "Up we go!" he says and ignires his jets!
Inari climbs up the supersoldier prototype and out into the access corridor!
RIU darts through after Jason! Whee!
The two men, both dressed in light fantasy outfits of silk and velvet, look surprised at the sudden cavalcade. "I say! Are you the chaps we were sent to open up a way for? You don't seem to have needed the assistance," one says.
Fuseli bursts through the window last, with Tracer bent to hug the nightmare's neck and Yappy bent to hug Tracer's back.
"Don't look at me," Jason mutters. He plots himself down on the floor and focuses on the supersoldier again. May as well march him the rest of the way through. Maybe he'll make it, maybe not.
As soon as the last one is through the window, White Cadena barks happily to the two Light-aligned warriors, approaching them, tail wagging, snuffling at them.
"Oh good, you made the hole!" Tracer says as she sits up and gets her bearings.
A tiny (compared to the bulldozer) robot sphere drifts out of the hatch. It glides slowly toward the bulldozer, carrying a replacement camera.
The supersoldier turns slowly and begins to march through the rest of the room. The announcer appears to have calmed down a bit. "Very good, soldier. You have now cleared half the room. Keep going. Remember, you are a supersoldier, and as such, heat, cold, and airless space or poison gases have no effect on you!"
The men look surprised at the dog. One looks up and at the woman on the horse. "Excuse me, miss, but is this your pet?"
The white dog doesn't wait for any confirmation. It bounds down the hallway toward the sounds of combat, zig-zagging behind pieces of debris as they become available.
"He's.. yes, sort of," Tracer says, waving a hand. "And the golden-armored man here is my Cybernetic Voodoo Shaman. He's controlling the supersoldier. Where are Solanca and the rest of your party?"
Even with the destroyed projectors, the frost crystals from the farther projectors still drift into the access corridor, making it extremely chilly next to the shattered observation window. Another window on the opposite side of the corridor looks into what appears to be a densely forested piece of land, if it weren't for the test chamber walls.
"Down the hall," the first man replies. "I'd love to stay and chat, but we're going to be needed for this last push--"
"I'm your shaman? Since when? Last I checked I was in charge," Jason grumbles from thwere he focuses on moving MeatMan.
"Warning! Internal reactor coolant systems have shut down," comes a loud voice from down the hall. "Final strike laser barrage in one minute."
The second man says, "Oh frotz, all hands on deck!"
"That doesn't sound good," Tracer mutters, and urges Fuseli to follow Cadena.
As Cadena races forward, he comes across a tense scene. Everyone who had been hiding behind various bits of debris or furniture in the oversized reactor control room jumps out now and begins unloading every weapon or spell they have at the door robot, which is a giant black sphere on four round feet, patterned in such a way that it looks like it's wearing a tuxedo.
White Cadena follows their lead, making all haste to approach the target and those engaging it in melee.
The supersoldier trods onward, pushing through the poison gas as if it were no more than a brisk refreshing shower. "Congratulations on completing the Environmental Extremes Testing regime, soldier! Fines for damage to the room will be deducted from your next pay check. Please proceed to the Defenses Testing Room." The door on the far side slides open... But the projectors don't turn off.
And through the door the supersoldier goes. Jason tries to find the hole to pull the soldier up through now.
The giant robot suddenly pops up several flamethrower projectors! "Now!" yells Solanca. The large armored warrior on the far side of the room yells, "Hey DoorBot! I hear your momma's so cheap because Hong Kong outsourced her to Korea!" Roaring at the indignity of this slander, the robot turns to the side and begins incinerating the warrior, while the armored bear slumps in place, taking a breather.
Fuseli runs out between two of the barriers, so that Tracy has a clear shot with her laser. "Hurray for big targets," she mutters, as she swings the cannon around on its gimbal and fires a burst.
The unicorn-headed woman stands out in the open. "Light, give me strength to heal my allies!" she prays. A beam of sunlight shines down on her from no apparent source, and then she stretches out her hands, channeling healing energies into the armored warrior.
POW! The laser shots rip into the door robot, causing sparks to fly. On any ordinary target, that would have shut it right down, so it's a testament to how overengineered this robot is that it continues to attempt to flamethrower the warrior into the ground.
"Nice shot!" says an unnamed character. Says another, "Is that Lady Tracer? I thought this was going to be a total lagfest and a waste of time, but things are turning around!"
Oddly, to Cadena's right, the leather-garbed rogue is running into the wall. "Frotz!" he yells. "Do you guys see me moving? I can't seem to do anything!"
Jason is annoyed on how slow the soldier moves, but what can you do? Onward it lumbers and is now climbing up through the hole in the floor made earlier. "RIU, go help Tracy zap that robot! Inari, help the other if you can, too. I'll join you when I can," he says.
"Got it, go and be indescribably awesome," the golden vixen says with a smirk. She streaks down the hall.
A priest in a brown robe chants and gestures, aiming his actions toward the bear, but it seems as if he's moving in slow motion. "In nomine Lux," he sings. "In the name of the Light..."
The white dog dashes out from behind the debris, sighting the robot, but is then distracted by the sight of the leather-clad thief running into the wall. Feeling a tinge of pity, the dog dashes over and makes a canine whine, tugging on the thief's sleeve and trying to turn him toward the enemy and away from the wall.
Solanca, a silver-haired, salt-and-pepper-bearded man, comes out from behind the boulder he was sheltered behind, and starts toward the DoorBot. He draws his rapier, which shimmers with a bluish light.
The rogue turns and charges headlong for DoorBot! "Oh hey, I've got control! I'm in the game! We've got this now, guys!" he yells. "Blades of WIND!" And across his forearms, blue-white light shimmers into place, wrapping them in gloves, then poking past them to become dual punch-daggers.
The brown-furred wolf clings to Tracy's back. "Ack! What do I do?" he complains. "I don't think my claws or fangs are going to make much of a dent in that monster of a robot!"
One of the heroes calls up what looks like a firebird, except made of ice crystals. "Fan of FROST!" he yells. The flamethrowers shut off briefly, jammed by sheets of ice.
"Just hold tight," Tracy says, as she spurs Fuseli forward again until he's near Solanca. Then she fires another 3-round burst at the robot!
The DoorBot announces, "Fifty seconds to Final Laser Barrage. Prepare to meet your doom, enemies of the Empire." It wouldn't sound quite as scary if the door robot hadn't said that in a passionless monotone, as if it were announcing tea was about to be served.
The laser scorches into the DoorBot's back, carving a red-glowing line through its armor! More smoke billows freely from its body.
Jason, in an annoyance of how slow the soldier is, has the soldier pick him up and just carry him towards the combat!
White Cadena rushes past the rogue, up to the robot, then cuts a path around it to weave over to the side of the armored bear, taking up position to worry the machine's defenses.
Other friendly heroes move into position, or send pets charging in to attack the DoorBot!
"FIAT LUX!" yells the priest, finally completing his spell. Another shaft of light probes through the ceiling, then slams down into the bear, recharging his energy and health.
The white dog sees that as the other Links, Augments and Avatars of the Light engage the creature, there's an opening: there are exposed cables. The dog hasn't a chance to gauge what those cables are for, but takes the chance anyway. Claws enlarge, and the white dog leaps in, slashing at the cables, ripping them free in a shower of red sparks!
The DoorBot threshes and flails about, one if its limbs no longer working! "It's almost down!" yells Solanca. "Flamethrowers are done, it's about to do a Coolant Gas Vent, turn it! Turn it, Small!"
The bear charges into the fray, renewed. It growls something nasty at the DoorBot. Grr-uhn-ARRUM! Apparently in ursine this translates into a deadly insult, because the robot turns back toward Small. One of its pile-driving limbs is out of commission and pistons into the air repeatedly, but the other one smashes repeatedly down onto the deck, forcing Small to dodge.
"Coolant gas venting in three... two... one." FWOOSH! Bilious green-yellow gas floods the door behind the robot. "There are now fourty seconds to Final Laser Strike. Your resistance is futile, enemies of the Empire. Submit now and meet your death peacefully."
The armored warrior who had previously held the DoorBot's attention gasps and then crumples against his shield, which looks rather the worse for wear. "Light... Give me strength," he groans.
"RIU, zap it if you can!" Jason orders as he urges the super soldier to continue running!
RIU takes in a deep breath... And suddenly there's a feeling that even the stars outside have paused to watch. A shaft of light arcs down from above, causing RIU to momentarily glow brightly, its armor strangely more complicated and larger. It spins in a spiral fashion, charging its bolt weapon.
And then fires! What would normally be an ordinary ball of St. Elmo's Fire becomes a ravening bolt of lightning, wrapped around with a helice of golden light, that strikes directly into the hole that Tracy had scorched into its armor.
The DoorBot threshes, all its lights blazing at once, as if something deep inside had turned on spotlights aimed at all the gaps and crevices in its armor... Then collapses, going completely dark. "Countdown... Aborted."
The mini-dragon swoops down and then perches onto the DoorBot's head, looking extremely proud of itself!
"Not that is how you earn belly-rubs," Tracer says approvingly.
The heroes stare at RIU. And then cheers and jubilation break out all over the room. "We did it!" "That was awesome! Way to make an entrance!" "WOOT!"
The rogue jabs at the robot with his punch-daggers, carving out sections of armor. "Take that! And that! And--" He pauses. "Oh, it's down! Great job, everyone!"
Jason gets the supersoldier to put him down. "RIU ... remind me never to make you mad. Good grief, how did you do that?" he asks the perching and proud dragon.
Solanca looks around, then catches sight of Lady Tracer. "Well done! You brought some very capable friends, I see." Glimpsing the soldier prototype lurching in from the corridor, he adds, "And I see you weren't kidding about your pet supersoldier, either."
RIU flops exhaustedly onto Jason. Its armor seems to be reconfiguring back into the normal innocuously cute form that it normally wears. "Eeble deep beep!" it says, still wearing that smug look.
"You have some interesting members on your own team," Tracer notes, glancing at the unicorn-headed healer, and wondering if Inari has noticed her yet.
Inari re-holsters her laser blade. "I was afraid I'd have to actually use this can of whoop," she says dryly. Her glance goes toward the bear and the unicorn-headed woman, and she is not alone in this curiousity, as Cadena also studies them.
The bear flops, looking as if he's all ready for a nap now. The unicorn-headed lady smiles shyly, then kneels by him and runs her gently glowing hands over his fur, healing away the small cuts and burns.
The white dog lets the others regroup and plan their next move, breaking away from studying the bear and unicorn-headed woman, to tend to the obviously wounded.
Solanca raises an eyebrow. "We're a collection of oddballs, I fear," he says to Lady Tracer. "Is there anything in particular that raised your interest?"
"Those two.. do they always team together?" Tracer asks Solanca.
Jason reaches back and activates his helmet remove sequence. It splits apart into numerous fragments that spread out, then settle down on his shoulders. "I wonder if they are who I think they are?" he remarks as he walks over to stand closer to Inari.
"Always," the grizzled fantasy veteran assures Tracer. "I ran into them out in the deep. They seem very shy, I haven't run into anyone who's gotten them to actually talk about themselves... But they are always glad to lend a hand to a mission for good."
Solanca adds, "What's weird is that they don't seem to have any Avatars or Augments. They just have magical powers. They're definitely not sorcerers though."
Tracer dismounts, and walks over to the pair, finally kneeling down to be on an even level. "Princess Heart?" she whispers to the unicorn-woman. "Jenny? Do you remember me? We were Champions together, at the Battle of Blake's Folly?"
The DoorBot's armor falls apart, section by section, revealing its core, a collection of glowing red crystals suspended in midair. "Loot!" crows the rogue. Solanca excuses himself. "I'm going to divvy up the crystals if you don't mind. You'll receive a fair share, of course."
"We don't need any," Jason remarks. Quieter, to Inari, he adds, "Those two, the ones we failed to save back when everything fell apart. Look at them now. I ... nothing. I shouldn't think such things."
The unicorn-headed woman looks up and at Tracer, looking fearful. She shies back a bit, and the bear-- who seems oddly a cross of humanoid and ursine features-- growls, standing up, moving to protect his lady.
"It's okay," Tracer says, holding her hands up. "I'm with... well, the new White, and Jason and Inari. The White fused you and your avatars to save you, didn't it?"
"I... We..." Something in the way Lady Tracer gestures must have soothed her worries, because Princess Heart relaxes a bit. "I don't remember. I woke up like this, a long time ago. Just me and Small, on a tiny little rock way out in the deep," she whispers, so that Tracy has to lean in close to hear.
Small growls. Ursine is unfortunately not one of Tracy's favored languages.
"But.. you remember that you're meant to be together, right?" Tracy whispers back. "Do.. do you want to remember what came before that, if you could?"
The white dog walks up next to Tracer, and looks at the bear. The dog's mouth opens. "We were swept up in a storm. I clinged to my Avatar. Jenny's ... hers came in the very last minute. Up through the waves. The light ... blinding. Glorious."
Inari shakes her head to Jason. "More like me and Akiko, before...?" she asks Jason wonderingly. "But do you have a magic wand to wave this time?"
Small tilts his head at Cadena. Grrf grrmble grr!
"If we get to the core I would. Once I have access to the quantum manipulators I could ... but it's like playing God. Maybe they're happier like that," Jason says and shrugs.
The golden vixen smiles a bit. "At least you can offer them the choice." She leans on Jason. "They were my enemies so many years ago... But was it their fault or was it Blake? How should I feel?"
"You can understand me! I do not know you. Whose Avatar are you?" White Cadena says next, in a gruff voice. Then, changing tones, the dog says, "My ownership is tangled. I am beholden to House Manjari, House Trudeau, and of course, to the Light."
Grateful for the translation, Tracer rubs Cadena behind his ears. "My mother tried to break Blake's false memories for you, Nick. Did it work?" she asks the bear. "Do you remember who you and Jenny really are?"
Heart smiles shyly at the dog. "I don't remember anything before I woke up," she admits. "Small tells me my name is Heart. And he is Small. But no one else can understand him. Except for you."
The bear says through Cadena, "Dimly. I was once a man. I was proud. Maybe too proud. Then I saw my love struck down. Betrayal. I could not leave her. I held on to her, through the storm. It sent us flying. We saw the stars."
"I don't really know," Jason admits. "I think there comes a point when you just have to let it go. Perhaps the right thing to do here is start over. Offer them your hand. As you said, offer them the choice of what to be, a friend or foe. Come on, lets go over there?" He wraps his arm around Inari briefly to offer her a comforting hug, then lets go and walks towards Tracy, the bear, and the unicorn.
Yappy stands back a bit, looking awkward. Solanca comes around to split the crystals bounty.
"Do you want to come with us, to another world?" Tracer asks, "Or are you happy here?"
Inari grins a bit. "Life was easier when all I had to do was rock and kick tail," she mutters, then goes to follow Jason.
White Cadena "breaks character" as translator for a brief moment to give Tracer a sad look, but then returns its attention to the bear and unicorn.
Small leans up against Heart, and she hugs him close. That seems to be sufficient response.
"Lonelier, too," Jason points out.
The golden vixen smirks. "I'm a kitsune, I should embrace change more. It's our calling. Maybe I'm getting old."
"Oh yes, terribly old and wrinkled," Jason quips. Now closer he waves to the bear and unicorn. "Hello," he says.
Tracy's orb chimes. Apparently Aldestre wants to know how they're doing.
Tracer stands up and nods to the couple, then steps aside for Jason and Inari.
Inari kicks Jason in the shin, somewhat ruining the friendly wave.
The unicorn-headed lady in the white dress looks up at Jason and Inari, but there is a look of sadness in her eyes. "H-hi," she says softly, and then to Inari. "I feel like I know you. I've seen you before, in my dreams."
Inari's hand stiffens a bit, where she's holding onto Jason's.
The bear grrs in its throat. "You are the Trickster." Cadena's translation.
Jason looks between the two women. "You two are old friends, torn apart long ago," he offers as the explanation. "Back when chaos was threatening everything, confusing friends as foes." He holds his free hand up as if asking the bear to quiet. "She was imprisoned and made to play a game against her own friends. It's time to see that for what it truly was and mend the damage."
Tracer leans against Fuseli's shoulder, and tells Yappy, "I should be writing a poem about this. Those two.. they're the first. The first real people to be pulled into a virtual world. They don't even remember their real lives anymore."
Inari, about to offer a defense or perhaps a smart-aleck retort, gives Jason a grateful look. "Before I was the Trickster, I was your friend, I think I remember that much about... before the madness," she says quietly. "It wasn't my choice to oppose you. But I just wanted to let you know I'm not your enemy, not now."
Yappy looks a bit confused. "Wait, you mean I'm not the first? Frotz! I was going to rake in some sweet blog deals."
Heart smiles shyly, then extends a hand. "I don't want to be enemies. Not anyone's, not anymore." The bear considers, then lays his paw over Heart's and Inari's.
"Sorry, but you're years too late," Tracer tells the wolf. "It's ironic that your brother's group found them and didn't realize what it meant. They're the proof, and the warning, of what happens when two worlds overlap, and what can happen to someone stuck on the wrong side."
Yappy sulks. "Great, so I'm just another victim." He shakes his head. "I'd feel better if I had a big ol' weapon like the one you're toting. Claws just won't cut it here."
"You've got what it takes, Mike, don't worry," Tracer says, smiling to the wolf and squeezing his shoulder. "I saw the security footage. You might seem meek when it's just your own skin, but you were pretty brave when other people were in danger of being hurt."
"You saw that? The trick with the bathroom chemicals? Yeah, that was an inspired little bit of engineering," Yappy says, perking up. "I was thinking back to when I met Jason, and he showed me what he could do with a li'l ol' multitool."
Tracer grins. "Plus, you actually listened to me when I told you what was going on, even after I flashed you like an idiot," she points out. "That earns you points too."
Yappy grins hugely. "Oh, was that you? You look totally different now! But I like the new look," he hastens to point out.
"You may be able to have back what you lost. Through that door leads ... well, eventually to the source of creation if I want to use a mystical phrase. If we survive, we may be able to give you back what was taken from you. The choice is yours. You have been through enough and I will not force anything upon you that you do not wish. Just ... consider it. There are those who would be happy to see you two again," Jason offers and puts his hand on top of the bear's. "Now, I hope you can forgive us, but we must continue through the door. I guess it's time I pretended to be the hero some people seem to think I am."
Small rumbles, "We are content here. But we will help you if we can." Heart smiles shyly at Jason, as his hand joins the stack.
Inari smiles a bit, but a sincere one.
"All right, listen up, the General fight comes next," Solanca yells at his assembled parties in the background. "Remember, if you're glowing red, stand by the positive terminal, if you've got a blue charge, stand by the negative one! You go the wrong way, you'll blow us all to Kingdom Come! And he switches polarity every thirty seconds..."
"The offer will remain should you change your mind. And, thank you for your help," Jason says as he draws his armored hand back. He reaches up to his neck and activates the helmet control; the segments lifting up and reconstructing the armored shell about his head. He waves for RIu to return to his shoulder, then heads towards the door to meet with the others, leaving Inari to linger with the pair should she choose.
"So.. hmmm," Tracer says, pursing her lips. "I know you can howl, maybe we can use that. And flattery is nice, but don't push it too far."
Inari speaks quietly with Heart and Small for a bit. "... but I have to admit, that bit with swapping the salt and the sugar in the jell-O? Totally not Blake, I was just fed up with being on the outside." Small bites Inari. "Ow! Okay, I guess I deserved that." Heart laughs, like crystal tinkling.
Yappy chuckles a bit. "Well, maybe if I howl at the right pitch, I can shatter some glass!"
Duffy wurfs, "Okay, let's wrap this up! DEP?"
"To get that high.. I think you'd have to be fixed first, wouldn't you?" Tracer asks. "If we really need that though, my saber is sharp and would probably be painless.."
"You might be surprised how useful that could be at times," Jason points out now that he's closer to Tracer and Yappy. "And you know, Tracer ... you really do have a tendency to find yourself real dogs for boyfriends. First Mark ... and now a werewolf. I think you do that to deliberately annoy your mother..."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-05-22-in-other-news-fire-is-hot.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 3:00 PM Eastern
The antechamber would normally be the monitoring and power distribution center for Tesliem, but explosions have shaken loose tons of debris and some of the gigantic racks of computers have fallen over, spilling cards etched with what appears to be runes and glyphs instead of the electronics with which Jason is familiar. Ahead of them are two massive doors that read "QUINTESSENCE REFINERY - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY." Levers to left and right seem to be the manual release controls, which must be activated simultaneously.
The Diadem raiders ahead clearly believe that slaying the DoorBot constitutes authorization, as they prepare to enter, with Solanca reviewing the fight strategy. "All right, as soon as we pop the door open, we'll get seen by their elite guards. These guys are shielded, so DPS and tanks, attack one first to get a charge, then switch to the other guy, since they're immune to damage from people with the same charge they have. Stay away from people with the opposite color charge."
The brown-robed priest raises his hand, though it looks like he's suffering from lag, slowing him down to half speed. "What about us healers?"
Solanca shakes his head. "The charges won't affect your healing. But when you get a charge in the boss fight just after that, make sure you move to the same side as that terminal."
The bear named 'Small' and the unicorn-headed woman, Princess Heart, embrace and then she retires to her side, preparing her healing energies, a nimbus of light glowing at the tip of her horn and around her hands. He looks back to Jason and Inari, and Tracy and Cadena, then growls briefly.
Prepare yourselves, Cadena echoes, translating his speech. It appears that animals understand one another.
"Let me see your gun, Tracy. Maybe I can improve its efficiency and give you more shots per charge," Jason remarks and waves the gothgirl over.
A golden vixen, dressed in a black armored jumpsuit that seems practically underdressed compared to the elaborate fantasy armor of the raiders, takes up the hilt of her laser sword. Her thumb on the button causes the blade to extend, glowing a dull red. "I'd feel better," Inari confides to Jason, "If I had my rifle. I didn't think I'd need it!"
Tracer makes sure that Yappy is securely on the saddle behind her, and pats Fuseli's neck. "I hope we can neutralize the guards without killing them," she mutters.
"I would feel better if you had your rifle, too. Maybe we can recover something similar from someone inside," Jason suggests, though doesn't sound particularly optimistic about it.
White Cadena seems to have trouble following all the squad directions. "What happens if the opposite-charge elite guards get too close to each other?"
Yappy looks a bit woebegone. "This is a bit high level for me to be fighting, y'know?" he whines. "I've always thought of myself as a support character, really, not a hero."
"Maybe we should just have Yappy wait here. If we fall, he could go get help," Jason suggests.
"I might be able to catch them both in my Maze of Horrors," Tracer tells Solanca.
Ton Weigh, a hefty man dressed in red robes, says to Cadena dryly, "We could find out... They might explode and kill everyone nearby. Or, they might gain enormous powers and again, kill us all."
Inari brightens. "That's true. I saw some guards with guns a... Little while ago? A long time ago? Time flies when you're having fun."
Another raider adds, "I hear if you put them together, they gain a chain lightning attack."
White Cadena nods, not pushing that line of inquiry any further. Instead, he trots over to Tracer, looking expectantly up to her. "So that I am not distracted unduly, what is our primary objective, and how might I best assist?"
"Ans Tracy, I'm still waiting for your gun," Jason remarks dryly.
Solanca shakes his head to Tracy. "They seem to be protected against most 'distraction' abilities that we've tried in the past. I suppose they're 'elite' for a reason!"
"We have to shut down the power floor to main reactor, which I think requires taking out the terminals and balancer," Tracer notes, then looks at Jason.. and at her laser cannon. "You want my cannon? You've already got the one carried by your pet monster."
White Cadena ahems. "I believe Mr. Edwards merely wanted to look at your cannon to see how he might optimize its output."
"And apparently you're not listening again. I asked earlier to look at it to see if I could improve its efficiency and get you more shots for your charge," Jason remarks. "Now, if you prefer to stay as you are and risk dying, by all means. I won't force you to look into every possible survival option."
Pursing her lips for a moment, Tracer then unhooks the Gatling-laser from its mount and hands it down to Jason.
The remote-controlled supersoldier looms behind the rest of them, wordless, emotionless. It is a 20-foot tall monstrosity, a heavily armored humanoid shape that appears disconcertingly to have been stitched together in the places where the dull gray skin is exposed, and it carries an 'energy arquebus' - extremely powerful, but requiring ten seconds to recharge after every shot.
"Please be careful, that's a family heirloom you know," Tracer says.
RIU buzzes around behind Jason, then darts up to inspect the heavy laser weapon. Ooh, shiny thing!
"Although maybe Inari could use it.." the pale armored girl admits.
The laser gatling appears surprisingly lightweight, despite its size and bulk. Some unknown artificer has engraved blue swirls into the hilt, which wrap around each other in a Gordian knot of power.
"Thank you," Jason says as he takes the gun. He settles down on the floor, cross-legged, to look at it. "Lets look at the charge cycle and wire lengths," he mutters as he starts opening one of the panels to check the system. "Chained capacitors, most likely."
Inari eyes the gatling. "Too brutish for my tastes," she says.
"Maybe we can get Mark's bow for you then," Tracer remarks to the vixen.
"We'll see what kind of condition it's in after we're done with him, won't we?" Inari smirks. "I won't count my weapons until they're in my hand and ready to fire."
White Cadena watches Mr. Edwards at work, ears flicking, head cocking from one side to the other, showing signs of amazement at how effortlessly the electronics wizard modifies the device.
While Jason tinkers, Tracer guides Fuseli over towards the door so she can talk to Solanca. "I'd like to try an area attack before the tanks rush in," she says. "If it's successful, the guards will be neutralized before we attack them."
"I could always have RIU sit on your head and zot people every time you point at them and say 'bang'," Jason 'helpfully' offers Inari while he tinkers.
Solanca considers. "By all means. Father Camillo, can you have a heal targeted and ready for the Lady Tracer? She'll be drawing their initial shots."
"Why is it that people who design fantasy worlds always choose appearance over function? These lines are way too long, you're losing power due to capacitive and inductive effects on each other, effectively raising the impedance of the power transmission. That can be reduced," Jason mutters as he starts cutting wires and splicing them shorter. The bits are flung over his shoulder. "The sights, while ornate, are not aligned right, that needs to be fixed. And ... bah, these need to be aligned too, you're losing damage to wasted power. Come on folks, make sure lenses are aligned for proper focus. But, what should I expect from a woman with a squid fetish?"
"He's talking about my mother, not me," Tracer quickly notes.
Yappy raises an eyebrow. "Oh... kay..."
RIU licks the battery. zap! A fat blue spark crackles.
Inari peers interestedly at Jason's work, but shudders at the mention of the squid fetish. "I still have nightmares," she mutters.
It takes a while for the brown-robed priest to respond, but he finally nods and bows to Solanca. "If it is the will of the Light," he responds. "In Nomine Lux... Hear my prayers, and aid my friends!" His motions seem sluggish, as if he's moving through water.
White Cadena winces. "I would offer to focus on healing for Lady Tracer, but I have no ability to provide healing at range, and I cannot hope to keep up with Fuseli. Lady Tracer, I defer to your judgement on my primary role in this conflict. I could focus on an individual to provide healing and personal defense, or I could help to harry a target in close combat, but I am not a capable primary fighter."
"I still have the fantasies," Jason quips impishly to Inari. "A bit of warning," he adds as an aside, "While I am pilotting big ugly over there, I won't be able to do much. I'll have to stay out of range. And I'm serious about Yappy, if he wants to stay out here, that's fine. We don't have any weapons to give him. So unless he wants to hunt and track in there, he's probably just a target." He slaps the plate closed, then peers at it. Seemingly inspired by something, he scratches '+1' on the outer cover; probably some geek joke.
"I plan on attacking as soon as the doors are opened, Cadena," Tracer notes. "I won't be charging in to do it, I just need line of sight and range."
Jason gets up to his feet and offers the gun back to Tracy/Tracer. "I know how women can't stand to be separated from their mechanical toys /too/ long," he remarks.
"Maybe that's only when you are involved," Tracer quips back, as she remounts the weapon. "Thanks for the tune-up though Jason," she says, and blows a kiss towards his helmet.
The hitherto unnamed rogue comes up. "Oh, puppy here needs some equipment? I guess I can lend him something," he says with a grin. His mouth seems oddly out of sync with his voice. Perhaps it's an effect of the lag. He rummages through his pack and takes out weapons that are obviously far too large for the small bag. There's a giant surfboard-sized sword, a club sized for an ogre, with a skull on one side of the tip and spikes on the other side, a gleaming crystal bow with a string of energy...
White Cadena looks between Lady Tracer and Jason. "Should I start by your side, or by Mr. Edwards'?" Noting the large cluster of individuals by the door, he adds, "I sincerely hope these enemies do not specialize in area-effect attacks."
"Just remember, squeeze slowly. Jerking the trigger causes your aim to be off," Jason remarks. "Now, as for me ... I'll either pilot the monster, or ... well, be the sacrificial armored guy while you kill it."
Phosphemus, another mage like Ton Weigh but equipped with a shoulderpad on one side of his robes that blends into a half-helmet, peers at the rogue suspiciously. "Max, that looks like that guy's sword..."
The rogue replies, "Purely coincidental!"
"Stick with Jason," Tracer suggests to Cadena. "I've got defenses I can use."
"Is he housebroken?" Jason asks.
The brown-furred werewolf peers at the choices dubiously, then looks over at Jason and at Tracer. "I, um, I'll take the club, that doesn't look too complicated to use," he says, choosing the club. "Thanks, Mr. Max!"
White Cadena bows its head to Lady Tracer. "Very well then, my Lady. May the Light's Blessings be upon you for this glorious battle against the Darkness." The dog then trots over to Jason's side.
"Wise choice, my friend," the rogue says. "I've collected a few of these gimcracks over the years. Souvenirs, you might say. For me, my trustworthy Blades of the Wind will do me just fine."
Yappy grins and lolls his tongue. "Now if your looks draw too many fans," he confides. "I can beat them off with a stick!"
Inari grins at RIU as Jason suggests using it as a 'zapper'. "I think he'll be happier if you have him guard you," she says. "I'm going to join the fun next to Solanca, I think."
"Right. I'd ask you to be careful, but I know better," Jason teases Inari, then stretches a bit. "All of you, of course, realize we're about to die?"
Yappy eeps. "Wait, no, I didn't sign on for dying!"
"You always say that, Jason," Tracer notes.
"Of course I do. It's my job," Jason quips.
Solanca pulls a face. "All right, friends, we know what to do. If we die, it will be with glory, not shame that we did not dare to contend against the best the Empire has to offer. But we will triumph, have faith! Let's do this!"
"I only have faith in using overwhelming force, which we lack," Jason quips. "But in any event, shall we?"
As Solanca gives the signal, Ton Weigh and Phosphemus move to the levers on their side. The doors creak open to reveal the eerie red glow of the Refinery proper...
"For the Light!" White Cadena howls.
Before them, two guards in giant suits of powered armor, easily ten feet tall, turn with surprise. "Intruders!"
The enormous form of General Vilius Irongrip sneers. "Deal with them, my lieutenants! Nothing must interfere with our plans. A new world lies beyond this portal for us to conquer!"
As soon as the doors fly open, Fuseli lets out a horrifying nightmare shriek towards the two guards, as Tracer calls out, "Maze of Horrors!"
The spell washes across the guards... But weird red lines flash across their armored visors, absorbing it harmlessly. "Fools! We are fearless! We are the Emperor's First!" one yells. As they activate their shields, causing one to emanate a bloody red glow and the other to gleam with blue light, the other adds, "Surrender now and your death will be quick and painless."
"How unpoetic," Tracer mutters.
"Oh just shut up. I am tired of all the fantasy babble-de-gook. Oooh, ahh, you have a thesaurus, I'm quaking in my armored boots. I'll take a bigger gun, any day, thanks," Jason complains. His eyes narrow and he re-stablishes control of the super soldier behind them. Time to introduce the Negative guard to Mr. Happy Cannon (tm).
KaFWOOM! A giant ball of energy gathers at the tip of the arquebus. With experience, Jason has learned to compensate for the recoil, so it zooms straight across the room... And crashes into the shield surrounding the guard. Plasma splashes around him, leaving the guard apparently unharmed... But at the same time, red lightning streaks back against the same path, hitting the remote-controlled supersoldier.
The supersoldier now crackles with red lightning all over, giving it a menacing look. "RRRrr!"
The red guard laughs. "Behold! Your weapons are ineffective against us! Tremble in awe at the genius of the Empire's science!"
"Target the blue one next," Tracer suggests to Jason.
"Oh yeah, your momma trembles in awe at my magic!" yells Sir John, the armored knight as he runs in. Whatever Small growls must translate into much the same thing, for both guards turn immediately to the heavily armored (or furred) figures that have moved up to confront them. "Take that back, you lawless cur!" the blue-glowing one yells.
The raiders pour in with what looks like practiced ease for most... Unfortunately Max's lag problems seem to have resurfaced, for he is running against the wall again. Father Camillo, the brown-robed priest, seems frozen in place.
Yappy hefts his club as he clings to Fuseli's back behind Tracer, breathing hard... And he hasn't even had to hit anything yet.
Solanca yells as he runs in, "Fox! Take Max's side, over on the right! Switch targets after you've hit them! We need to bring them down at the same time, or they'll summon reinforcements."
"Who are you calling-- well, I am a fox, I suppose," Inari says with a smirk, moving across.
The General taps several oversized buttons -- buttons that would be out of reach for a normal person. What sane person designed a reactor that needed to be operated by a supersoldier? The guards ignite their energy pikes, preparing for melee combat as their opponents rush to confront them.
"You know, I wonder if I could get to and modify those terminals so that they all short out..." Jason wonders. "Forward, ho!" he declares and runs forward!
Immediately to the left of the raid is a large monitor that purports to track the status of the refinery. It claims, 'LEVIATHAN BLOOD TAP AT MAXIMUM - CONVERSION EFFICIENCY 100% - OUTPUT 50%'... But the output ticks upward to 51% as they watch. There are several banks of what look like Empire-style computers next to the refinery, and complicated looking regulators on the far right, on a platform that overlooks the energy beam being shot into the vortex.
The remote-controlled supersoldier waits patiently, tilting its gun to the side as it hums and rebuilds its energy.
White Cadena looks taken aback as the armored technician runs past, being focused just a moment ago on interfering with incoming blasts. The white dog is a bit late on the draw, and gives Lady Tracer an apologetic glance as it dashes by her, trailing behind Jason.
Engaged with their opponents for the moment, the guards aim what look like devastating blows against them. Small growls as he dodges one attack. The knight, Sir John, takes one straight to the chest and reels backward. "Medic!" he cries. But Father Camillo, the healer on his side, suddenly assumes a position of abject fear. "Oh no! The horrors! Save me!"
Solanca swears. "That's his autopilot! He thought it'd be funny to make it play him as a coward while he was logged out..."
"What is the new plan?" White Cadena barks urgently after Jason, sparing a glance to the wounded knight and then to the unresponsive healer.
Princess Heart, the unicorn-headed lady, turns her head worriedly. "Father Camillo! Your champion needs you!" she calls.
Max continues to run into a wall. "Guys? I think I'm lagging again," he complains. "Nothing I do seems to be working!"
"I'm going to try and short the system. I doubt my built-in weaponry would do much against them," Jason calls back. "Help the knight if you want. I think I'm safe for the moment!"
"Heart, take over for Camillo!" Tracer calls as she moves Fuseli out into melee range of the blue guard and drawing her saber, Regret.
"My pardon, Lady Tracer!" White Cadena barks out, still running into the chamber. "Mustn't Princess Heart focus on her charges? I can lend help to the knight, if it pleases you."
Ton Weigh conjures up his Augment staff; he and Phosphemus begin to throw spells at the guards. The other raid members launch their attacks, but the results are similar: whenever an attack lands, it seems as if it has no effect, but launches lightning back to encase their attackers in a corruscating corona of energy.
"Do what you can then, Cadenia!" Tracer says. "Don't wait for my instructions!"
The 'Reactor Output' creeps up ominously from 51% to 52%.
White Cadena changes course, making an all-out dash toward the wounded knight, but there's still so much ground yet to cover.
There's a clang as Tracer's saber strikes the guard's shield, (followed by another clang as Fuseli's horseshoes make contact).
As Tracer's attack and that of her warhorse bounce harmlessly off of his shield, causing them to acquire a blue lightning glow, the blue-glowing guard scoffs. "You may as well be hitting us with kittens!"
The General studies the glowing screen of his giant operator terminal, then moves a lever. The reactor output creeps up to 53%.
Jason's run slows as his attention shifts back to the super soldier. The gun raises and this time targets the blue guard instead of the red. "Two heads are not better than one," Jason mutters distractedly.
Max yells, "This is insane! I'm logging, guys." The rogue's expression shifts. "I'd better get out of here while the getting's good," he mutters, and then begins to drift toward a shadowy corner of the room.
KaFWOOM! The energy ball launches across the room and crashes into the blue-guard. "Surrender now and--" His denuciation is interrupted by a scream of anguish as the boiling hot plasma washes over him. "ARRGH!"
Inari backflips out of the way of the explosion, acrobatically! "Darkness!" she swears, breathing hard. "Watch where you're shooting, Jason!"
"It's not easy running two brains at once," Jason complains!
Sir John backpedals, eyes wild, as the ball of living energy smashes into the guard before him! "Father Camillo? I could use a little help here, any moment now!"
Miraculously, it looks like no one was injured, though the plasma backwash is uncomfortably hot. The guard however, is gravely injured, pieces of armor burned away to reveal a normal-sized human in a (formerly comfortably air-conditioned) cavity within the suit, breathing hard. "Little help here?" he calls to his comrade.
Fuseli snorts at the torn-open Imperial armor from where he jumped back. "Did you get any fur singed?" Tracer asks Yappy.
Yappy shakes his head. "Too close for my comfort! I thought we were goners," he says.
Solanca yells, "Friends, focus your damage on the red one! Reset your charges if you've got red, run out and back in." He turns to do the same.
"We're changing targets," Tracer says. "Yappy, give blue here a tap with your club so you can fight the red one too."
The blue-glowing soldier turns toward the supersoldier. "We've got a rogue supersoldier! Concentrate your fire on it!" he yells.
Small growls something incomprehensible to the raid as the red-glowing soldier turns. It sounds insulting.
"What did you say about the Emperor? Motherless furball!" yells the red-glowing soldier, renewing his attack against the bear.
The energy lance unleashes a narrow line of energy... That dies against the supersoldier's chest armor. "Our weapons are useless!" complains the blue-glowing soldier. "We need backup!"
The raid of Diadem heroes scrambles to change their charges. It looks like a hectic hodge-podge of people running back and forth.
Princess Heart lowers her horn to infuse Small with healing energies, renewing him against the merciless onslaught of the Elite Guard.
Inari, glowing in blue lightning, shakes her head as she recovers from her backflip.
White Cadena finally makes it over to the wounded knight, slowing to a trot, glowing brighter. "May the blessings of the Light fall upon you, binding together torn flesh and soothing your pain. May you be strengthened again, for we rely upon your strength, as a single shining chain, no one link of which is dispensable in our fight against the Darkness." Animated, silvery chains move forward to embrace Sir John's wounded form, bathing him in a soft glow.
Sir John raises his sword through the blue lightning charge that wreathes him. "The Light has smiled upon me!" He charges across the room. "Small, switch!"
The reactor output continues to increase ominously, now standing at 55%.
The blue-glowing elite armored guard shifts his stance and begins charging toward the supersoldier. Solanca cries out in surprise. "He's going after your pet!" he warns Jason. "Small, grab him!"
There is a confusion and bustling as the guard plows through the raid members changing their auras... Though this conveniently allows them to change their charges quickly. Blue lightning swathes a majority of the raid now.
"For the honor of the Empire!" yells the blue-glowing guard. "If I die, it will be with the Emperor's name on my lips!"
The red-glowing guard sneers. "Your attacks have no effect upon me, bear." He turns to select the next most likely opponent, his visor's attention sweeping across Inari even as Sir John runs forward to engage his attention.
The armored knight, now glowing with residual light from White Cadena's holy healing, shouts to the red-armored guard, "You call that a red glow? I say it looks rather light to me... I might even say... A SISSY PINK glow!"
"You fool! You dare insult the colors of the Empire? I will HAVE YOUR HEAD!" roars the red-glowing guard as he assaults Sir John.
"Let's go, Fuseli!" Tracer calls out, and the nightmare charges towards the Red (or Pink) guard. Tracer holds her saber out to strike as well!
As the Lady Tracer moves, the freshly blue-auraed raid joins in to focus their fire upon the more intact-looking guard. "For Tasavalta and the Light!" Solanca yells.
Alas, though the saber strike looks good, it appears to have done insufficient damage to get past the defenses of the guard. It leaves a nasty-looking gouge on his side.
The scruffy brown-furred wolf swings wildly with his club... But misses! Sir John yelps. "Hey, careful there, dog-face! Er, sorry, didn't mean that the way it sounded. Habit."
Fuseli lashes out, striking what looks like a less-armored spot. Sparks fly, and the red-armored guard glares at the horse.
The golden vixen slides into place at the back, taking advantage of the guard's distraction. She readies her laser sword... Then strikes!
The blade slashes right through the armor, causing noxious smoke to belch forth. "Argh! You enemies of the Empire shall not triumph!" yells the guard, turning around to try to locate his attacker.
The armored bear runs pell-mell after the blue-glowing guard, intent on stopping it from engaging the supersoldier!
"Small, the gun is about charged! When that thing fires at the blue ... you do not want to be near!" Jason shouts!
As the red-armored guard turns to face Inari however... She takes a pellet from her belt and throws it to the ground. Smoke envelopes her!
Sir John lashes at the red guard, drawing his attention back. "Pink! That's what I said, your momma dresses you funny!"
The raid begins to pour damage into the red-armored guard. Spells and weapons crash into his defenses.
The bear pauses at Jason's yell. "Grrf!" He takes up position in the doorway, being ready to engage it. As he stands there however, the red lightning that had surrounded him begins to drain away into the two metal poles that bracket the entrance.
Jason has to slow to a walk again as he focuses on the super soldier. "Right. Say hello to my leetle friend, eh?" Jason comments as he gets the super soldier to raise its cannon again.
The ball of fusion energy glows wildly on the energy arquebus as Jason takes sight... And cracks right into the blue-armored guard, even as he raises his arms, trying to shield himself from the strike! The hot plasma washes across him, eliciting a scream of agony.
The blue-armored guard goes down, raising the attention of the red-armored guard. "He's down! I've got to call for reinforcements!" he says. Solanca yells, "For the love of the Light, get him before it's too late!"
"I guess it isn't going to die with the Emperor's name on his lips. More like a scream," Jason mutters grimly.
The General's attention turns toward his erstwhile guards. "How disappointing," he rumbles, his voice loudspeaker-like. "But their might is as nothing compared to mine, the first supersoldier of the Empire."
White Cadena, hearing the call, makes a desperate dash across the distance, hurling himself at the red-glowing armor, tearing into wiring and machinery exposed by previous blows. "The Light shall prevail!" he howls as he throws himself into a clawed frenzy.
The blue lightning around Cadena crackles and pushes aside the red shield, allowing him to slip through and rake at one of the less-armored joints - the spot just behind one of its sabaton-like greaves. The red-glowing guard staggers. "Fools! Where one falls... More will come!"
Regret bites into the red armor, releasing a burst of purple sparks as a chunk is carved off. Fuseli kicks again, but his enchanted shoes slides off the armor this time!
The red-armored guard turns toward the wall where a bright friendly red button reads, "IN CASE OF ARMED INVASION, PRESS BUTTON."
It appears that whatever Tracer hit has damaged the shield generator that the red-armored guard carries. His field drops, leaving him exposed!
The supersoldier's arquebus charges with a distant, ethereal hum.
"RIU, light up the guard!" Jason orders his neck-dragon while he starts to rapidly fiddle with the western control terminal, looking for ways to access feed and power lines to the terminals ... and overload them if possible!
The tiny dragon's blue lightning cracks across the room - but unhappily, it appears that the armor is still sufficiently grounded as to protect its occupant! The minidragon sulks audibly in the air next to Jason.
Tracer makes another slash at the now-uncharged armor, sends sparks and metal flying!
To any ordinary player, the operator's terminal would be just so much gibberish laid atop schematics of the refinery and the reactor, but they are not Jason, who has spent weeks on an Imperial battleship studying its systems. As he flips through the tabs of the display, he gains the impression that the most obvious ways to stop this thing are to cut off the feed of blood from the Leviathan, to overload the refinery sphere, which might cause it to explode and necessitate a hasty escape, or to meddle with the regulator, where positive and negative quintessence are combined to form a beam of energy, causing the mechanism to overload, and very likely explode. Most of the options involve something exploding.
Fuseli rears up... And some divine inspiration must have struck because in that second, shadow-flames leaps up from its eyes and hooves. Its barding elongates, forming articulated armor that sweeps up over its skeletal wings, forming sheets of flame between the pinions. It whinnies and then brings both front hooves down upon its target, the midsection of the red-armored guard, causing cracks to spread across his armor...
And then his wings sweep forward, flooding the interior of the sundered armor with living flame. "AAAHHH!" yells the guard, stopped in mid-motion.
The horse whinnies and stamps, scattering the remains of the elite guard!
"Awesome! Great finishing move!" yells one of the raiders. "Brace yourselves," Solanca warns. "Now the General will enter the fight!"
"Extra sugar cubes for you tonight," Tracer says, as if in a daze as she pats the side of Fuseli's neck.
"So who here wants to explode?" Jason calls back from where he works on the terminal. "We even have options for how we explode!"
General Vilius Irongrip (giant version) turns and cracks his knuckles, then lifts the helm for his armor from the table next to him. "Do you think you have won, heroes? You have won merely the right to die against the Empire's greatest soldier," he scoffs as he dons it, causing his face to be hidden away behind its dark mirrored visor.
"Does one of them involve destroying that energy beam?" Tracer asks, then blinks. "Uh.. come to think of it, we probably need to follow the beam's path to get out of here to the next platform."
The blue charges surrounding the raiders flickers and dies away. However, the regulator hums and goes into energetic activity, with two large tesla coil-like devices on both sides taking on red and blue-colored lightning.
White Cadena lingers for a moment over the charred remains, then snaps its attention toward the new opponent. "Lady Tracer, this being looks somewhat like the General from the recountings of Mr. Edwards's Avatar. Is there some sort of connection?"
Jason's focus switches to looking at the regulator controls, trying to figure out how long he could rig a timer on it before everything just explodes. There's a pause in his work, though, to see if he can get MeatMan to lumber into the chamber to help fight the other super soldier.
"It's certainly a Vilius Irongrip," Tracer notes to Cadena. "But I don't know if it's the one from before or a freshly generated version."
Solanca barks orders. "Everyone, get in position! Spread out, and stay with people of your charge." He glances over where Father Camillo and Max have gone, then looks to the white dog. "I hate to ask this of you, Cadena, but if you could assist Sir John... His healer seems to have fled in the heat of battle."
After sparing a quick glance to Lady Tracer, White Cadena gives a bow of his head to the raid leader. "I shall do my best to assist Sir John."
The General peers across at the supersoldier. "Soldier! Fall in and assist me in executing this rabble!" he orders.
"Yappy, you might want to get off," Tracer tells her saddle-mate. "This is going to be really nasty."
The brown-furred werewolf gulps. "Yeah, he looks... pretty big!"
Yappy slides off of Fuseli, though he keeps his club handy and looks around for potential attackers.
"General Vilius Irongrip!" White Cadena cries out, "Do not forget the time when you joined forces with Lady Holly of House Trudeau! I serve her daughter now, and we fight against an evil greater than this universe. If you continue this path, you will betray your Empire to outside forces seeking to drain its power for their own gain! This energy goes not to your Empire's glory, nor even for conquest, but to those who would destroy worlds for its own sake!"
General Irongrip draws his energy arquebus as the raid runs up toward him. He pauses as White Cadena yells, though the visor hides his expression. "Impudent cur! Who is this Lady Holly of whom you speak? If her daughter is the Lady Tracer, you serve a thorn in the side of the Empire, and I should kill you first!"
"Okay, he's raised his weapon, time to pull out the stops," Tracy whispers to Fuseli, as she sets him to gallop.
Taking advantage of the General's evident confusion, the raid moves up toward his position, where they can spread out around him.
White Cadena rushes to keep up with Sir John. "Do not discount the Lady Holly of Trudeau! She is quite possibly the greatest sorceress of two worlds, chief arcanist of the Ozymandias! It was she who conjured the mighty B-F-G! It was she who conjured a frankfurter sandwich the size of an Imperial battleship in the middle of Tasavalta in the middle of the great infernal conflagration! It was she ..." The dog continues to list off all of her many accomplishments, as picked up (perhaps with some modification in the translation) from RIU and in bits and pieces from others.
"You are a worthy minion of the House Trudeau," says the General with a laugh. "I shall grant you the signal privilege of dying first, in the name of your so-called Lady Holly."
"Looks like to blow this place safely I have to go between the electrical terminals," Jason complains, "What about my safety? Oh well! He draws away from the west terminal and heads south, trying to keep a large arc (and thus behind everyone else!).
"Look out! Heart, shield Cadena!" yells Solanca as he runs in toward the General. The unicorn-headed princess is quick to react, summoning up light and then gesturing toward the white dog.
The General's energy arquebus fires! The ball of plasma launches toward Cadena, bringing with it the promise of extra-crispy dog...
"I wasn't FINISHED with my MONOLOGUE YET!" White Cadena barks, as he leaps to the side.
But as soon as the General fires, another plasma ball sings through the air - in his direction! With amazing accuracy, it strikes the General's arquebus, causing it to explode in a gout of flame. He screams. "ARRGH! BETRAYAL!"
As the smoke clears, it reveals a charred supersoldier General, bits of armor blown away from his right-side arm which seems to have taken the brunt of the damage. "You fool! You will regret the day that you turned your back against the Empire," he roars, reaching to his back to draw forth a giant version of the energy pikes that his elite guards carried.
"Serves you right for shooting at my dog!" Tracy yells at the general, and charges forward.
And just at that moment, red and blue lightning crackle around the terminals, then reach out and strike everyone!
"Yeah yeah, I'm such a scourge to the empire," Jason mutters as he heads south.
Orbs of red lightning form around Tracy and her nightmare, and around Cadena and Yappy. Blue lightning surrounds Jason and RIU, even around Inari's shadowy form, and washes over the remote-controlled supersoldier's frame.
As the raiders acquire differently colored charges, they yelp and start trying to get away from those of the opposite color charges. "Red, go left, blue, go right!" yells Solanca. "No, not your left! His left!"
And both red and blue lightning crash into the General himself, energizing his body! "The EMPIRE shall grant me the strength to CRUSH you, rebel!"
Electric potential builds up in the air between Yappy, Jason, and RIU.
"The empire grants you such a fashion statement, sailor!" Jason calls out to the General ... right before backpedaling away from Yappy!
Saying nothing, the remote controlled supersoldier stands in place as his arquebus hums, recharging.
"Speed of Darkness," Tracer whispers to Fuseli, as they both take on a slightly blurry appearance.
The raiders rally to try to get the General under control. "Small, I'll take him first," Sir John calls out. "Cadena, was it? Can you shield me? This guy's going to hurt!"
White Cadena rushes after Sir John, trying to keep up, but with the sudden stampede of warriors of the Light, he has to turn this way and that not to inadvertently trip up anyone. It also hardly helps that he has to keep on rattling off Holly's accomplishments, lest any be overlooked. "... and there was the time she conjured giant pinwheels to stabilize the Ozymandias as Lord Jason Drachehand and the mighty Captain Cranston guided it through the maelstrom of the aether! ..."
And while she has a clear shot, Tracer says, "Glimpse of the Abyss!" Fuseli rears up and stamps the ground, sending a fan of burning cracks towards the General.
The General, alas, appears almost contemptuous as he steps over the cracks. "Tiny pests! Begone, I have more important matters with which to deal."
"Even pests can sting," Tracer notes, and brings the laser to bear before squeezing off a 3-shot burst.
The laser gatling +1 rakes across the exposed arcane circuitry, causing it to throw up red sparks! The General growls, turning his gaze toward the little scion of House Trudeau and her irritating little nightmare...
"Cloak of Shadows," Tracer says to Fuseli.. and suddenly there are multiple Tracers and Fuselis to choose from.
"The internal damage must be worst than I thought," the General growls to himself. "I'm seeing double..."
"I've been told my presence can be intoxicating," the Tracers tease the General.
"I would call it nauseating," Jason remarks.
White Cadena pants, jogging up to Sir John, finally catching up as the knight reaches a corner of the complex. "May the Light bind you and protect you against the Darkness!" the dog barks. The blue patterns on the dog's face writhe, and the silvery chains lengthen and separate. Loops of shining chains now orbit Sir John, spinning in orbits around him that shift and curve to avoid interfering with his movements, and to intercept enemy blows and blasts.
Sir John, emboldened by the glow of the chains which have sprouted around him, yells to the General, "Your momma's so fat the Emperor mistook her for a Leviathan and they're trying to find a vein!" The General turns around in a rage. "You take that back! NO one speaks of my mother in that fashion!"
The General turns and strikes at the pest who dared to insult his mother! Sir John's chains reach out and lash at the incoming energy pike, slowing it, but even so, the armored knight grunts as it finally crashes into his shield. He appears unharmed.
"Sir John, Cadena, be ready to dodge!" Jason shouts as he returns focus on his zombie-soldier, trying to aim for roughly the General's chest and head area. "RIU, zap him too!" he adds to the order, before completely focusing on MeatMan's controls.
The remote-control supersoldier remorselessly discharges its arquebus... And another staggering burst of energy slams into the General! His high-pitched scream shakes the glass of the observation window as more armor is blown off of his body. What is left is a 20 feet tall skeleton of metal, covered with gruesomely pulsing veins of some black rubbery substance, armored here and there with tougher pieces that managed to survive the impact, so he looks somewhat like a giant skeleton. He appears ready to collapse, clinging to life with brutal tenacity. "I-i-impossible!"
The follow-up tiny bolt of blue electricity from RIU by comparison seems a little lacking. The dragon looks up to Jason as if to confirm, "I helped, right?"
"You always help," Jason tells the little dragon and even reaches up to pat him with an armored hand. "And come on! Die already!"
"Final phase!" yells Solanca. "He's going to trigger a refinery meltdown! Pour it on!"
White Cadena looks confused. "Refinery meltdown? Won't that be counter to the objectives of ...?" But he lets that question fall short, as the only person immediately nearby to answer him would be Sir John at the moment.
"No... No, you have not reckoned with all of my resources," the General's voice says from the recesses of his metal skull, the destruction causing it to rattle and click. "Huntsman! Serve the Empire, destroy the intruders!"
Sir John looks perplexed. "Wait, that's not in the script..." he says, loud enough for Cadena to make it out.
"Ohhh, crap," Tracy mutters as she hears the summoning.
"It's another Super Soldier!" White Cadena warns Sir John. "He's another ... another ... protagonist? No, that's not the word. He's actively meddling to try to help the enemy! He voluntarily put his brain in one of those things!"
A whine of servomotors accompanies another supersoldier emerging from behind the refinery sphere. It looks identical to the first one.
Solanca looks startled. "What the... Finish the General off, then engage the new one!" he calls out to his raiders.
Tracer's next words are filtered out by the universe when see sees who the new super soldier is carrying on its shoulder, complete with enchanted crossbow. "MARK! You idiot," she finally declares.
"Me? I'm the one with a giant robot under my command," the thin, far off voice responds. "I don't suppose you'd care to surrender now and make this easy on everyone?"
As Mark speaks, on the shoulder of his giant robot, he sends it striding forward, its own energy arquebus turning toward the swarm of tiny (from its point of view) heroes assaulting the General. "You don't care about these silly little heroes trying to finish this encounter, do you?" he asks. "What if I were to, oh, pop a few of them?"
RIU eeps and darts protectively in front of Jason! Yappy, looking around, tries to take shelter behind the fallen Elite Guard.
Tracer grits her teeth, and turns Fuseli towards the new threat. "Why are you risking your life like this, anyway?" she calls to Mark. "What has Sasha got over you that you'd throw away everything? This can't just be about our breakup!"
While Tracer talks, Fuseli and their clones move to get between the heroes and Mark.
As Tracy and the new supersoldier's pilot exchange words, the raid moves up to engage the General, trying to take him down before he can activate the refinery's overload mechanism. "Push! Give it everything you've got!"
Mark pats his supersoldier on the shoulder. Even though logically it shouldn't even feel anything beneath that armor, it emits an odd purring noise. "That's a good girl," he says. "As for me, risking my life? Well, first of all, you're worth a lot of money. It'd really do me a lot of good to collect on you. Second, you're my girlfriend, you don't get to decide on your own it's over. So all I'm doing is teaching you who's in charge. And thirdly..."
He drops down from its shoulder, landing, then sweeps his cloak around himself... And vanishes from sight. It must be some kind of invisibility cloak!
"You raise a good point," his voice says from thin air. "Why should I risk my life? That's what Bella is for. Go get 'em, girl!"
The supersoldier-- outwardly as neuter in appearance as the rest-- charges forth with a wild snarl!
"Your new girl still has to get through me first you know," Tracer claims. "Going to let it trample me?"
The General, bracing himself with his energy pike, yells. "This is the General speaking! Reactor controls, voice override. Codeword, Samson..."
"Pour everything you've got into it!" exhorts Solanca as he stabs away, his rapiers tracing elaborate flourishing patterns in the air.
"RIU, blast the general! You can do it!" Jason encourages the little dragon. And Jason himself joins in, raising his own hands and firing of the directional Tesla discharge system!
"General!" White Cadena cries out, in disbelief. "Maybe you're 'supposed' to do this, but there are consequences! That energy is flowing into the other world! Your people are there! You can't overload the reactor - the results would be catastrophic for everyone - your Empire included!"
The General, unbelievably, pauses at Cadena's word... Just as lightning bolts stab at him from Jason and RIU's direction.
And in that moment of hesitation, he fries.
The armored skeleton grinds to a halt, emitting faint red and blue sparks.
A fox-shaped shimmer in the air continues to move on past the General's smoking body, toward the main operator terminal.
"No ... no ... I'm in control! What are you doing?!" White Cadena cries out. "This is stupid! He's a villain! It isn't your turn! The Spark does not approve!" His body glows brighter, along with his chains.
"Chains of Suspension!" the glowing dog and chains cry out, as they wrap around the smoking skull of the fallen General.
Ton Weigh raises his eyebrow, looking toward Cadena. Small remains focused upon the most obvious threat, as does Sir John, both moving forward to get Bella's attention, but Princess Heart spares a look for the white dog as well, worried for his sake.
"For the love of everything, don't be an idiot!" Jason yells at Cadena. "He would show you no compassion, do not show him any! We have enough problems to still deal with, we don't need him attacking us again!"
The glowing form coalesces, as the giant skull of the General cracks open. When the light clears away to a less blinding level, there is a humanoid canine form in flowing white robes, with a staff in one hand, and a small 1-foot-diameter armored sphere under one arm. "There is another thing you must know about Lady Holly of House Trudeau, General. It is she who gave me my chance to live again, and it is for her sake that I will not allow you to die in this senseless game."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-06-05-bella-ciao.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 3:30 PM Eastern
It seems as if some unknown nemesis is throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the heroes, as they have only now succeeded in bringing down the General, but not before he called in his ally, Mark Berkowitz, who appears to have a pet supersoldier with a rather feline temperament under his control. Presently, Mark himself is roaming invisibly, allowing his nigh-invincible soldier to charge forth into battle on his behalf.
Unbelievably, Cadena, having appealed to the General's compassion and finding what he believes to be a spark worth saving, has transformed into Brother Cadena and extracted his brain. This resides in a small, one foot diameter sphere that is adorned with several red gems which appear to fuel life support magics. Now uninhabited, the gigantic armored skeleton of a supersoldier begins to fall apart, the unnatural materials dissolving and leaving glowing crystals in their remains - proof that one has defeated a powerful enemy opposed to the Light.
Inari roams stealthily, saving her strike for an opportune moment. Yappy cringes behind the fallen body of one of the Tesliem Elite Armored Guards. The remaining raiders look warily at the new combatant, and Small growls, readying himself to charge.
"Under normal circumstances, that would be the end of the fight," Solanca says dryly as he nods to the dissolving body of the General's supersoldier, then to Bella, who is crouched down as if she were about to pounce in feline fashion, still holding her energy arquebus. "However, it appears we have a new opponent. Ladies and gentlemen... Prepare yourselves for battle!"
"I can try to keep in the way of the big gun," Tracy tells the others. "Mark needs me unhurt to collect the bounty, so shouldn't let his pet shoot through me!"
"If we play by the rules, we're bound by the game mechanics," Jason mutters from where he's still behind 'MeatMan'., "However, I've never played by the rules. So ... how can we change things to be in our favor? And gah, controlling two bodies at once is taxing. Anyway, first thing, disable that other SS. Need to destroy her weapon, or just blow her head off."
Brother Cadena tucks the small metal brain-sphere under his left arm. A few ethereal-looking chains wrap loosely around it, but this seems more decorative than functional. This leaves Brother Cadena with only one hand to hold a staff that clearly needs two in order to be an effective weapon or defense in melee. He keeps close to Sir John, maintaining the defensive chains that orbit and protect the knight.
Bella sweeps her gaze - somehow despite being in the body of a giant vaguely masculine half-robot golem, she manages to convey a sense of female felinity - across the gathered raiders. Her eyes settle upon Lady Tracer upon Fuseli. She shifts her stance and brings her gun to bear.
Tiny lights flicker on the surface of the brain sphere.
"Ahah, I have an idea," Jason says. He smacks the back of his helmet, which helpfully spits out a small module of electronics. "Lets see if I can adjust the phase-lock-loop of the sensor to operate in a different spectrum. Might help find Mark. I want to kill him slowly..."
The cat in supersoldier charges forth, firing recklessly!
"Lets see. If I establish a link through a sub-channel of my own processor and then out to RIU, we can use positional location to locate minute disturbances in the air, the lingering smoke, and Mark's own horrific body odor," Jason remarks to himself as he tinkers with what looks like a dentist's tool for nerve torture on the exposed electronics. He's thankful that he's amazingly good at ignoring things around him for the most part.
The fusion ball smacks into the ground wide of Tracy and Fuseli. Even from here, she can feel the heat of the plasma brush against her cheek.
Small is first to charge into battle, followed by the rest of the motley crew of Avatars heroes.
"Hey, you aren't supposed to shoot at me!" Tracy yells at the super-cat-borg.
The cybernetically augmented cat replies with a snarl. A very nasty, possibly even jealous, snarl.
Jason slaps the module back into his helmet. "Ahah! I see ... stupid people," he complains.
Brother Cadena rushes forward, although Sir John quickly overtakes him. Rather than pushing himself just yet to keep up, he holds the staff forward in one hand as he advances, calling out, "May the Light reveal our enemy who hides in shadow, he who is known as Mark, who consorts with the abomination 'Bella,' and who covets Lady Tracer of House Trudeau!"
"Covet? He can have her!" Jason quips from behind MeatMan.
KaFWOOM! The tip of the staff bursts into blinding light. Beams of sunlight shoot outward from it... But they seem to warp away from their intended target, as if some infernal magic was bending space.
"Tell me if you have an idea of where he's hiding!" Tracy says, as she brings the laser cannon to bear.. and takes a moment to aim it at the muzzle of Bella's rifle.
"He's in the blast area of Bella's misfile. That's about all I can tell you. Continuing isolation. I claim first rights of killing him for what he did to my home," Jason shouts.
"The hunter hides over there, Lady Trudeau!" Brother Cadena calls out, indicating roughly with his staff an area well beyond Bella's misfire point, generally to the giant's left side. "I can feel the power of the Light assisting me, but I am being directly opposed by more than some mere stealth trickery or a basic invisibility spell!"
The gatling fires... And scores a direct hit on the arming chamber! The first shot scorches away the thick armor that makes up the arquebus's body, the second punches through the internal casing, and the third ignites the highly explosive quintessence that pulses within its depth. It explodes like a supernova, sending Bella staggering backward.
Tracer immediately turns Fuseli towards the area Cadena thinks Mark is hiding in, and snarls, "I've had enough of your crap, Mark: Maze of Horrors!"
Brother Cadena tries again, still rushing forward and sweeping the area with his staff as he strains to see the unseen. "Your evil deeds cannot remain hidden from the Light, Huntsman Mark!"
"What-- no! No! You can't leave me," Mark shouts. The beams of light force their way through the twisted space... and as Fuseli glares, flames leaping from his eyes, smoke curls up from the deck to surround a human form, armored in utilitarian black mail. Mark seems to be addressing someone hanging in midair. "I won't let you leave me!" His gaze suddenly pierces the veil of the Maze of Horrors, directly toward Lady Tracer.
"Let me blow you a kiss!" Tracy snaps, and Fuseli's hooves hit the ground and send a fan of flaming cracks towards Mark's revealed position!
Mark may be temporarily reliving the day that Tracy broke up with him... But he seems to have no trouble seeing the cracks on the ground racing toward his position. "Son of a--" He backflips out of the way. "Careful with that, you might hurt someone! Girls shouldn't handle weapons," he sneers.
Mark lifts his crossbow, feeling its comforting weight in his arms. "Bella! Keep her down once I bag her!" The bolt gleams as it flies... And explodes into a glowing net!
Fuseli dances aside and Tracer ducks low against his back.. And then vanishes as the net hits! Or rather, one of the pair of Tracer-Fuseli's vanishes, leaving the real pair free.
"Hey, Mark. Remember when I said I owed you for the damage you did to my house? Well, I'm collecting on that," Jason says as his eyes narrow. His link re-establishes to MeatMan and the horrific energy cannon is raised ... and targets Mark!
The raid charges forward, closing in on Bella! Her gun-arm armor is damaged, a segment hanging by a few cables, but she crouches and yowls loudly.
MeatMan's Arquebus chuffs as it spits out a fusion ball of energy aimed right for Mark. It looks as if it should be a direct hit... But the hunter's eyes widen as he sees incoming plasma-flavored doom and dives to the side, reeling as he almost falls into the yawning gap just off the edge of the platform.
Small roars defiance at Bella! Or wait-- that sounded pretty insulting actually. The cat-brained supersoldier turns and hiss-spits at the bear.
Brother Cadena hastens to keep up with Sir John and the others, as they charge the giant super-soldier creature.
Mark looks back, then glares at Tracy. "You've pushed me too far!" he yells, reloading his crossbow. The bolt he's inserting glows with deadly, needle-like viciousness.
Tracer takes a moment to lay her hands on either side of Fuseli's neck, and say a quick, barely remembered prayer; "Light flow through my heart and renew our bonds and strength.." The Nightmare's eyes flash as his power is partially recharged.
Bella charges at Small, trying to swat him out of existence!
Small dodges the attack with practiced ease. The cat's brain in the supersoldier body is used to a much quicker moving body. Bella snarls and hisses as her fists fail her; instead she raises a small crater in the ground.
Zahnrad says, "Movuing up now with MeatMan (So pace 6). Is RIU in blastin range of Mark?"
"Onward, ho!" Jason declares as he hangs onto MeatMan's leg and marches the hulk forward.
Having finished reloading, Mark takes aim with his crossbow... At Fuseli! "This is what happens to anyone else you try to have in your life!" he shouts.
Fuseli rears up, trying to strike the bolt out of the air! But his strike misses narrowly, and it strikes home, lodging in his barding. Black magic crackles out of the head, seeming to crawl around him, trying to find a weak spot in which to paralyze him -- but in a few seconds, fades away, apparently unsuccessful.
Mark curses. He glances to the side.
"I wasn't gonna say anything about you overcompensating with the super soldier, Mark, but after that.." Tracer notes.
"Now look, going after someone's friends is just low, Mark. but I guess I should expect that of you. Oh well, it makes me feel even less guilty about this," Jason remarks calmly. Link established to MeatMan ... target, one annoying human with overcompensation issues.
"RIU, your turn!" Jason declares.
Another bolt of plasma energy soars through the air toward Mark! But he was ready for it this time, and dodges out of its way as he reaches for another bolt from his quiver.
The minidragon zooms in, emitting an electronic warcry! REEEBLE!
ZAK! Blue lightning crackles across the distance. Mark wobbles, not having been expecting that.
With Mark looking shaken, Tracer and Fuseli gallop towards him!
Bella looks up, seeing her master in danger! She cries out, a shrill yowl, and prepares to charge.
Once the Fuseli is nearly on top of Mark, he kicks out with a hoof to try and knock him down!
Mark yelps, still wobbly from being electrocuted! The hoof strikes dead center into his chest, knocking all the wind out of him. He flies backward, arms windmilling at the air...
And Bella charges, springing with impossible speed for the supersoldier body, to catch him in midair!
Except that now she too is falling toward what looks like a pool of lava at the heart of Tesliem.
"Throw him back!" Tracy yells in panic. "I'll catch him!"
Solanca yells in startlement as the supersoldier leaps over his head. Various magic spells and arrows pass through the spot where Bella had been standing only seconds ago.
Bella growls in jealousy at Tracy's voice... But as the pool of roiling toxic wastes grows ever closer, she senses that it may be the only way to save her master. The supersoldier body winds up... And then flings Mark in the air, while she herself plummets down into the fiery heat.
"Fuseli, fly.." Tracy urges.
As Mark soars into the air, he shakes his head and then his eyes widen as he sees Bella plummeting into the lava, and he himself apparently flying through the air with no visible means of support. "No! Bella!" he yells. "BELLA!"
"Bella! RETURN TO THE VEIL!" yells Mark, making a gesture toward her. Her form starts to glow, then warp out of its supersoldier form, shrinking into a ghostly cat form... that fades out of sight.
Brother Cadena puffs and pants as he comes up to Tracer's side, having been unable to keep up with the stride of the giant super-soldier.
Fuseli leaps into the air.. then dives to try and get under Mark so Tracer can make a grab for him!
"Did you see that?" murmurs one of the raiders. "Un-FROTZ-ingly believable!"
Reaching out, Tracer snags one of Mark's legs and yanks him down onto Fuseli's back. "You idiot!" she tells him.
The orbiting chains encircling Sir John fade away, as Brother Cadena's protective spell disperses.
"RIU, make sure that idiot can't hurt anyone, will you? And I mean the male idiot, not the one who just saved him," Jason tells RIU through the link.
Mark struggles instinctively as Tracy grabs him, trying to pin him down and keep him from reaching any of the weapons or gadgets he's almost certainly got stashed on his person.
RIU turns, aims, and spits out a rifle-straight electric blast, surrounded by tiny blue rings. The hunter goes limp in Tracy's arms!
Tracy ooofs, partly from the dead weight and partly from spillover electric charge. "If this makes my hair look funny someone is getting hurt.." she vows.
Inari shimmers back into visibility next to Cadena. "I was so looking forward to stabbing him," she remarks. "After what he said to Tracy..."
"You still have the chance," Jason points out, "When they land."
Brother Cadena continues to jog, altering his course as he tries to anticipate the final landing spot of the flying nightmare and intercept it.
Solanca breaks into applause. "Well done, heroes!" he calls, and his raiders begin clapping.
Fuseli turns in flight, and lands on the platform near the terminals and balancer.
"Please tell me you saved him so we could inflict unspeakable torture upon him?" Jason calls out over to Tracy.
Inari flicks a button and her laser sword springs into life once more. "We could end his pathetic existence. All it would take would be one little cut..."
Tracer wipes some tears from her cheeks, claiming, "Stupid.. lava fumes." She lowers Mark to the ground after climbing down herself. "He's going to jail for attempted kidnapping, remember? If he were dead, how could you sue him for damages, Jason?"
Brother Cadena hastens over to Fuseli upon landing. "Lady Trudeau! That was quite heroic of you." He gives the horse and its rider a quick look-over for any obvious injuries, as he returns his staff to the sling over his back and digs through his robes with his newly free hand.
"Like he has any money. He was after you for your reward, remember," Jason points out. "One I could have traded you in for, but didn't."
Unconscious, Mark looks like your average redneck - swarthy, thick-built, garbed in deadly-looking mail armor. His hand remains clenched around the pistol grip of his crossbow, but it is unloaded - probably for the best. His pet is nowhere in sight, having been dismissed.
"We can still do that... as if Sasha would really pay," Tracer notes. "Someone get Yappy? I don't want to forget him when we leave, and.. Cadena? What happens if you leave here looking like that? Will you go back to 'normal' when we get outside?"
"Would it really have bothered you if that jerk had died?" Jason asks.
Small moves up. He grunts dismissively as he sees Mark, then looks over at Cadena and the brain sphere that he is carrying.
"YES!" Tracy snaps.
"Why?" Jason asks calmly.
Princess Heart rests her hand on the bear's back, looking too shy to speak up.
Yappy peers out from the emptied armor of the Tesliem Elite Armored Guard. "Is it over yet?" he asks plaintively.
"It's over," Jason confirms with a shout.
The brown-furred rangy werewolf jumps out of the armor. "Great! What did we win?"
"He was still my boyfriend, back when.. back when I had some serious self-esteem issues, okay?" Tracer replies. "I'm not going to explain my psychology to you. Things changed, and I stopped needing reinforcement of my screwed up self-image from him."
Inari smirks. "The truth is you wanted to rattle your mother's cage a bit, didn't you?" The golden vixen powers her laser sword down. "Did anyone bring some rope?"
"Actually, I did," Brother Cadena volunteers. "It comes in handy for situations such as these."
"All the better to let him go," Jason points out. "I'd much rather that he die, then you get hurt or killed because of him, okay? You're worth more than that piece of trash is." He shakes his head and heads towards the balancer now. "When you're all ready, I want all of you to leave."
"You could show one of the raiders how to shut that down you know," Tracy tells Jason, gesturing to Solanca and his team.
"Well, surely Tracy won't mind if we just make sure her boyfriend doesn't cause any more trouble," Inari says as she holds a hand out for the rope.
"I'm not going to shut it down. I'm going to detonate it," Jason notes as he starts looking over the system to figure it out.
Lower, and to Small, Brother Cadena looks apologetic. "I think there is more to this than it appears on the surface. I am not actually certain which General I have here right now, but I hope this magical life support will last long enough for me to sort it out. For a fleeting moment, I saw more in him than just a megalomaniacal villain; this man has a soul, and he is fighting for a cause that - even if it is wrong - he believes in. I believe that in a war, there are certain considerations that must be afforded to prisoners taken." He suddenly cuts off that line of thought. "Mr. Edwards? I wasn't lying to the General. I think there might be severe repercussions in the other world."
"I am aware," Jason notes, "And will be making sure it won't effect the other world before I do anything specific."
"Why do you have to blow everything up?" Tracer asks Jason. "Once the energy to the core is cut off, the vortexes shouldn't last much longer, right?"
Solanca approaches. "We're about to divide up the crystals before we make good our escape. We've agreed that you should take half of the crystals, but... Is there anything else that we can help you with, before we leave?"
"Because I don't want this to start up again," Jason answers. "We leave it repairable or functional it'll just start all over again, and again. Unlike a game, I like things to end, not do the same thing over and over and over."
"The crystals aren't of any use to us, you can take them all," Tracer tells Solanca.
Brother Cadena looks to Solanca. "Are there other personnel in this facility? I believe there may be indentured servants, menial workers and such to be found in Imperial facilities. If this is going to 'blow up,' perhaps we need to issue a warning to evacuate."
The gathered Avatars heroes, with the exception of Solanca and Ton Weigh, have set about breaking down the soul crystals that remain of the General's supersoldier. Ton Weigh, behind Solanca, raises an eyebrow. "You plan to destroy Tesliem itself? A tale that would be worthy of the greatest legends of Avatars," the portly mage says. "No one has ever understood its inner workings well enough before."
Solanca grins. "We could carry the warning... But who will believe us? We are the enemies, after all!"
It is just about then that the brain sphere suddenly sparks, a fat crackle of electricity arcing from one electrode to another. "Krrzt... Rr... What-- what happened?"
Brother Cadena rushes to one side, dropping to kneel, and carefully finding a place far from the edge of the lava. "General? Is that you? Are you all right in there?"
"I've rebuilt an Imperial Warship before, Ton," Jason remarks absently as he pours over the controls. "I understand how most of it works."
"It is a game on this side of the looking glass," Tracer reminds Jason. "Even if you blow it all up, it could just respawn in an hour. Maybe. And.. uh.. should we try to take Heart and Small with us, or wait until you can get core access again?"
"It's dark in here. Wait, I've been transferred to the supersoldier. All I have to do is open the soldier's eyes..." the General complains. A second later, a lense opens in the side of the sphere. "What-- I've been removed from my body! I demand that you reinstall me at once!"
Small grunts. Princess Heart says quietly, "The real world is no place for us anymore. Unless you need our help, we will return to Tasavalta with the others."
"Watch for me there, then," Tracer tells them, a bit sadly. "Maybe we can help you in other ways, after all this is taken care of. Or if we fail, and the different realities merge.. come save our butts okay?"
"Your body has been destroyed beyond repair," Brother Cadena says to the brain sphere. "I was able to recover your shell, and it appears that the magical support system is keeping you stable. I regret to inform you that this place is in danger of 'blowing up' - and I don't know the exact technical details beyond that. We need to issue an evacuation order. Is there a quick way to get you a new body? One ... smaller than a super-soldier would be ideal in order to escape."
"An evacuation order! Ridiculous! Tesliem is invulnerable to all harm," the General asserts. "That body there, isn't that one mine?" Though the sphere can't actually move, the lids of his optic sensor tilt in such a way as to indicate the one Jason had been remote-controlling. "Merely install me in that and I will demonstrate the foolishness of opposing the Empire."
"Actually, I control it, General," Jason remarks and glances back to the sphere. "And yes, this place can be destroyed. You have several fundamental flaws in its design, which can be easily exploited to destroy the entire place. And one more minor question, have we ever met before?"
The General sphere peers at Jason. "No, but I do not make it my business to associate with would-be heroes of the Light. Deluded champions of a mindless chaos!" His gaze turns back to Cadena. "Who is this man? How is it possible that he could dare to challenge the impregnable heart of Tesliem?"
"Yappy, do you think you can use a crossbow?" Tracer asks the werewolf while gesturing to Mark's weapon and quiver.
"You see, I'm no hero," Jason notes as his hands dance over the controls and streams of apparent gibberish spew across the displays. "I think Anyone here would readily confirm I'm anything but a hero."
"He is Captain Jason Drachehand," Brother Cadena says. "It is he who with the Gauntlet of Power resurrected the Ozymandias from the far-flung gates in the Outer Darkness, navigated an aether vortex to jump to Tasavalta, and ... well, a great many other things, really. As he frequently reminds people, he is no hero, but he does have a knack for building and fixing things, or blowing them up, with frightening efficacy."
"Yeah, he saved the world last time for purely selfish reasons, I'm sure," Tracer mutters.
"Oh yes," Brother Cadena says, as something seems to come to mind, and he shakes the fog away. "I'm afraid there is a terrible rift that has formed between worlds. How he got here was by traveling through a vortex from an entirely different universe. The energy output of this generator has been redirected from Tesliem and is instead being pumped into this other world - Earth - with devastating results expected if this process continues."
"And what would you have me do, Tracy? We're playing into the AD's hands if we play by the rules. We have to go outside the bounds and do things that would not follow their expected perspectives if we are to actually win this," Jason says as he continues to explore the systems. "I'm not heartless, I have no intention of hurting anyone on the outside, or risk any of you. The way is open and you can leave any time. I'll only risk myself, ever."
"Even if you were to somehow detonate the reactor, it would only purge this chamber," the General-sphere asserts. "This room is encased in adamantite! It is impervious to any and all damage. We would simply rebuild the reactor. Another would take my place, and Tesliem would continue. But if there were to be some sort of calamity that actually might threaten Tesliem... It would be necessary to call for General Order X-Zero." His voice hushes into a whisper. "Evacuation."
"And nothing is impervious," Jason adds to that. "There is a little universal fact with all matter. Everything has a resonant frequency."
Yappy peers at the crossbow, hefts it experimentally by the grip. "I can pretend it's one of those little G-Force guns. I can handle those! Er. Where do you put the magazine?"
Brother Cadena turns to Jason. "What about the Leviathan? If everything just 'blows up,' I suspect it won't be in much of a position to evacuate in time, will it? Is there some sort of release mechanism?"
"Yes, there is. I think we should release it now," Jason says and does exactly that.
Solanca considers the situation. "I think I see the threads of fate coming together... But perhaps you'd care to sum it up so we're all clear on it?"
"You cock the bow, then load one of these bolts into the groove," Tracer explains to Yappy. "Assuming any of it still exists when we leave. That other platform looked like it was still in a vortex zone, so it might persist," she says, a bit dully. "And you aren't going to risk yourself, either, Jason. Use the cyborg. Do you really think Inari will let you stay behind?"
"What about you, Tracy? Would you let me stay?" Jason asks.
The Leviathan groans as the feeder pipes retract from its hide... And then almost disbelievingly, turns as if to regard the stars that lie in the infinite deeps beyond Tesliem. It thrashes its tail and lunges into space.
"You don't like it when I don't do you what you tell me to," Tracer points out. "Then again, Mark used to tell me what to do too. And I didn't leave him behind. Make of that what you will."
Yappy takes the quiver. "Right then. Um. These arrows are all different colors, and they have different shaped heads too." The werewolf scratches behind one ear, considering. "Well, it shouldn't matter! Sharp end goes in the bad guy." He wags now that he has something with a bit more range than a skull-faced club.
"You hate me more than him," Jason notes as he starts scratching out equations on one of the metal panels using a metal tool. "Come on, think. What was the resistance and frequency range you figured out when you fixed the warship," he mutters to himself.
"General, have you ever heard of the world of 'Earth' before, and, just as importantly, have you ever been there?" Brother Cadena asks. "If it comes to evacuation, I need to know where we need to take you."
The General's sphere clacks. "Earth? Who names their world after dirt?" he says. "It's not too late to surrender to the might of the Empire. Worthy opponents such as you have proven could rise quickly in our ranks."
"I don't hate you, and I don't hate Mark either," Tracy claims, and pats Fuseli's side. "I wonder if I should dismiss you, Fuseli, or risk taking you through.."
"Don't think I didn't see the disappointment in you when I turned out to not be the hero you imagined me to be," Jason notes. He taps the plate, them seems to remember something and scratch it down.
"And if you want to take anything through, it will require resolution upgrade," Jason adds, "At least if I am thinking correctly about it. That includes the Genera's brain and your avatar. Of course that also means you may have to stay like you are now, too."
Ton Weigh looks to the south, where the annihilation of positive and negative quintessence generates a powerful beam that stabs through the vortex, into the Arcane Reactor that now seems to live in a different world. A bridge runs across, over the beam. "If I were to step across that bridge," he murmurs. "Would I then be in two places at once?"
"I wouldn't recommend it," Jason remarks absently.
Brother Cadena looks to Jason and Tracer, then to the bridge. "Ah ... My apologies, Lady Trudeau, but is this place still blowing up? I suspect that this is not our General Vilius Irongrip. In any case, that one wouldn't require a 'resolution upgrade.' Therefore, I suspect it would only harm him to take him through to the other side."
"Ask Yappy about that, Ton Weigh," Tracy suggests. "Cadena, Fuseli can probably take the General to safety. I won't risk bringing him through the vortex."
"This resolution upgrade would be essential then, I take it?" asks Ton Weigh. He hesitates. "What would happen to someone who did not have it?"
"Ever see the old movie, the Wizard of Oz?" Jason asks.
"The Black Curse," Brother Cadena says, shivering.
"The Witch, water, and use your imagination," Jason adds.
"It'll feel like your skin is being eaten away by billions of little ants," Tracer claims.
Ton Weigh looks disappointed.
"How much rope do we have left, Cadena?" Tracy asks.
"Right, so I know how to destroy this place," Jason concludes. "And I can to it on a timer. This would give time for all its inhabitants to evacuate, providing someone actually issues the order. I should also be able to sever the link back to the real world before it goes, which means the destruction will not ripple through," Jason says as he finishes out his math problem. "The only thing I couldn't figure out, was to how to make the explosion look like a giant middle finger pointing at Black." The last part leaves Jason founding very disappointed.
"A continual healing power can counteract the results, I am given to believe," Brother Cadena says to Ton Weigh. "Lady Heart might know more about it, but I still wouldn't advise it except in the most dire of circumstances." He digs around and produces the cord, handing it to Lady Tracer of House Trudeau.
"Help me make a harness so Fuseli can carry the General's ball out of here," Tracer asks the dog-man as she looks over the braincase for places to secure the cord.
Lady Heart shakes her head to Ton Weigh silently. Solanca leans toward Cadena and whispers, "His player's disabled. Spinal defect. When he heard the rumors that people had actually encountered Avatar characters in the real world..."
Inari looks up from where she's secured Mark with the cord. "Now you want to drag him too?... Head up or down?" she asks.
Fuseli whinnies and glares at the General's sphere. Something about its eyes suggests to Tracy 'As soon as my mistress is out of sight... Stomp!'
Brother Cadena nods sadly to Solanca. "I'm sorry. I did not know." He starts to work with the cord. "I regret to say that the 'Avatars in the Real World' are not ... quite as might be advertised by the rumors. I have been trying to investigate the truth behind them, but all I have are wild theories and unsubstantiated speculation at this point."
"We can carry Mark out," Tracer tells Inari. "But we aren't taking this version of the General, and I'm not bringing Fuseli through. I can dismiss my horse, but unless one of the heroes wants to carry the General out.. well, I guess he'd make a hell of a souvenir."
The Nightmare noses Tracy meaningfully. His gaze goes from the sphere... to the lava pit still churning below with the waste products of Quintessence refining.
"I hate to be a burden, but ... is 'blowing things up' entirely necessary to stop the flow of energy to Earth? I had hoped that releasing the Leviathan would be sufficient," Brother Cadena asks as he works. "Even if an evacuation order is issued, there is still the risk of innocent slaves - er, that is, 'indentured servants' - being left behind in the chaos."
Solanca chuckles. "We have plenty of those already. Well, let me get everyone sorted out... And I need to find Father Camillo and Max, wherever they've gotten to."
"That would definitely upset Cadena," Tracy notes to Fuseli. "And it isn't appropriate for a Champion of the Light to chuck brains into boiling lava."
Fuseli looks disappointed.
"An evacuation would be chaotic enough, even if the damage is limited, to keep things from starting up immediately," Tracy notes. "So sound the alarm already, give us a countdown, and let's go on and.. get shot at by the security guys on the next platform."
Small grunts. The unicorn-headed healer says softly to Tracy, voice a bell-like whisper, "We may take the General with us. Through the power of the Light, he may be restored to a body, beyond the reach of the Empire. Perhaps he will come to understand the truth. Or perhaps he will wish to return to the prison he knows."
"As I explained earlier, this is about 'not playing by the rules'," Jason says as he rests his head against one of the displays. "We can't 'play the game' as it is expected to be played. We won't win that way. We have to go against the rules and all expectations. No regular player could destroy this place, we can. If we just do what is 'expected', the ADs have already won. We play by their rules, we're their slaves. Simple as that."
"Thanks Jen- .. Princess Heart," Tracy says, sounding relieved. "I don't suppose any of you can open a portal to safety, for convenience. You must have a ship somewhere close by, right?"
The General's sphere emits tiny little crackles of disapproval. "This-- this can't be happening! Guards! Where are the guards! We must stop that madman from destroying Tesliem!"
Solanca nods. "We've got several ships tied up, actually! That's why I asked, I wanted to make sure none of you got left behind."
Ton Weigh says, "It would, as they say, 'blow' if someone were to be confused on which ship they belonged... And on correcting that error, find that their ship had left already."
Brother Cadena nods to Jason, standing back up and cradling the brain sphere. "I'm sorry, General. I have no quarrel with your Empire, but right now our priority must go to stopping a menace that threatens both our universes. Your Empire will be strong enough to withstand this minor setback. It always does. I beg you, please go with Princess Heart and Small. They will see you to safety and I trust them. If there is some way we can issue an evacuation order, now would be the time to do so. I promise you, I will try to help your people who are caught on the other side of the vortex."
"We're leaving through the vortex," Tracy notes and pats Solanca on the shoulder. "I'll look you guys up if I ever get back here again. Now scoot! Take care of Heart and Small, alert the King's Explorers and.. uh.. thanks for the help!"
Inari raps the sphere. "If you're not going to help, just be quiet," she growls. Her eye goes from Mark to the lava pit, but... Tracy is watching.
Jason's head rolls a bit so that he's looking sideways from the screen at Small and Princess Heart. "I am sorry we couldn't do more for you back then," he tells them. "But at least you are both together again. If you ever want to try and leave, contact us. Or if you need anything at all, for that matter."
Small rests his head against Jason's leg briefly. Princess Heart smiles, then kisses Jason's cheek. "You have the heart of a hero," she whispers. They turn to join up with Solanca and the others.
Tracy whispers to Inari, "Would you chuck Brian Montagne into the lava?"
Inari says, "Yes."
"But not the skill or courage of one," Jason admits and shakes his head. "I can't make any of this ... right, I can just control the damage to some extent. And so much of it is probably my fault anyway."
The General seems swayed by Cadena's voice. "I... If there is nothing I can do for my people beyond speak for them..." Another fat bolt of electricity crackles. His brain sphere lights dim. "I will give the order. We will pass through the communication center on our way out... Connect me there."
"Well, Mark didn't break my heart, I broke his," Tracy notes. "So he's partly my responsibility.. I think. Help me carry him?" she asks.
"How long do you need to reach your ships?" Jason asks in a louder voice.
Princess Heart smiles at Jason, pausing to reach out to Cadena for the brain sphere.
Solanca says crisply, "Not long. Five minutes should do it, but I'd say ten for the inevitable mishaps." He glances over at Phosphemus. "Like someone dropping their book of magic into the garbage disposal." The other mage colors.
Brother Cadena hands over the sphere, then whispers and moves his hands through the motions of a blessing for the departing heroes and their odd charge.
Inari grumps. "Fine. I'll just hope that he tries to resist."
"I'll give it twelve, then. Once this starts it's unlikely to be stoppable. The reaction will quickly become self-sustaining. Once the resonance point is hit, that's it. It'll feed on itself until this whole place disintegrates," Jason says. He taps a bit more on the panel, then says, "Program loaded. I'll use the zombie to activate it as we all leave."
Yappy fidgets with his crossbow, then moves up to where Tracy and Inari are carrying Mark. "Right, lock-and-loaded, ready to move out, sir! Ma'am. Um. Boss."
"Until I see you again, Fuseli," Tracy tells her horse, and kisses him on the cheek. "Return to the fields of dream, between the Light and the Darkness."
"Just call her Sexy. She likes that," Jason claims.
Princess Heart smiles at Cadena, accepting the General's sphere. She and Small accompany Solanca and the raiders as they depart on their errand of mercy.
Mark continues to be solidly unconscious. Which is probably for the best.
Under Jason's direction, the supersoldier lurches toward the main operator terminal. Empire script flows across the monitors. Things go ominously, CLACK and WHIRRR.
"All right, all of you get going already," Jason complains and makes shooing motions with his hands.
"Hold him up, so I can get him into a fireman's carry," Tracy says. "Hopefully I won't drop him if my shoulder armor vanishes.."
Inari holds Mark up obligingly.
Brother Cadena frowns, walking up to help. "I can assist with that, Lady Tracer, if I may. If we encounter danger, you are a far more capable fighter. Most of my contributions are passive in nature."
Tracy squats, gets her right shoulder under Mark's stomach and tries to life him up that way. Just don't drool down my back, she asks the gods of fate.
"My arms are permanent though," Tracy points out to Cadena. "And Inari is probably better at fighting than I am."
Mark does not drool down Tracy's back.
Brother Cadena looks uncertainly at his hands, flexing the fingers, turning them over and examining each side. He frowns and nods, then follows, keeping watch out for the next threat.
Jason enters the final sequence into the system; the one that overloads the control lines to the reactor to make it impossible to undo what he has done. He steps away from the panel and walks towards the bridge and the vortex out. As he reaches over his shoulder and waves to the cyborg, he says, "You know, for someone without a brain, you were an amazing ally. But ... I promise I won't ask Tracy to get a lobotomy to see if she becomes a better ally too." He lowers his arm and tries to stick his hands into nonexistent pockets. "BEsides, she's ... " he mutters to himself, the last few words of that sentence being lost in the noise of the vortex.
"So much for unicorn kisses improving one's outlook," Tracy says to the others, and marches forward with Mark slung over her shoulder.
As the final order is given, the supersoldier turns to regard the departing heroes, though there's no way that anything like emotion could possibly be running through the tiny control that Jason had installed. He then reaches up to grab two small switches, one on each side of the Main Operator Terminal, and flips them.
The beam of mutually annihilating quintessence wavers and then begins to thin out. Beneath their feet the bridge wobbles, becoming unsteady footing. They are forced to quicken their paces, Inari helping Tracy with Mark...
The swirling green fogs rise up around them, thick with the noxious odors of quintessence wastes. Pure white light stabs through it, and then they emerge into the fluorescent lights of the Q-Link.
In another universe, fancifully carved ships with butterfly wings of blue and gold and all the other colors of the rainbow pause to look back at Tesliem. The General was true to his words: all over the docks and hangars, dull gray military ships are putting out to space, tiny boat "life pods" are being ejected, trailing smoke as their tiny engines put distance between them and the lightning-surrounded asteroid.
In true space, sound would not travel... But here in the Diadem, there's an eerie rising crescendo from the asteroid as its very structure begins to sing. Cracks form across its surface, glowing with plasma heat.
And then it explodes, just as the last ships are departing, sending them flying helter-skelter across the cosmos. A ring of pure concussive force flings itself out across its equator. Solanca's ship catches the wind, is flung instantly to immense speed, and on its bridge, Princess Heart topples into Small's clutches, as the bear hangs grimly onto the railing with his enormous claws. A distant 'WOOHOO!' sounds as Solanca hangs on for dear life.
As they emerge onto the familiar white ceramic tiles of the Q-Link, several workers are working frantically at the equipment that lines the walls. "We're losing the beam! Something's wrong!" the nearest one yells.
The guard yells, "Get it back!"
The lieutenant moves toward the workers, studying the monitors. "Something must have gone wrong on the other side," he muses.
For the moment, it seems as if the guards haven't yet noticed the arrival of the heroes. On the southern platform, Chaz Burgundy is still being held hostage by a Tesliem captain, with a Tesliem Mage-Lord glowering as the beam to the Arcane Reactor grows thin and thready. Monica stands near him, her face pale.
"Hey, Inari ... think you can sneak over and deal with the guards around Chaz?" Jason whispers to the kitsune as he draws a finger along the front of his throat as a suggestion.
The golden vixen frowns. "There's the matter of that vortex in the way," she whispers back. Behind her, Yappy is trying very hard not to make a loud noise as he walks behind them.
"And here I had the faith you could do the impossible," Jason teases softly. "How about the guards in here?"
"I can't carry this guy forever," Tracy whispers, looking for a good spot to lay Mark down.. and not a little disturbed to still be Lady Tracer outside of the vortex.
"Do you want them dead, very dead, or only a little dead?" asks Inari.
"The others would complain if they were more than only a little dead," Jason admits.
The golden vixen sniffs disdainfully, then begins to sneak silently forward.
Brother Cadena bites his lip, and just assists Tracy in setting Mark down, as quietly as he can manage.
She ignites her laser sword and raises it, preparing to sever the guard from his life...
And with a THWACK she brings the laser sword's hilt with a crack down on the guard's head, then catches the guard before he can fall. The other guard and the lieutenant, distracted with the monitors reporting falling power output, take no notice - it's hard to hear over the noise of the vortexes themselves.
The golden vixen eases the guard gently down to the floor and turns toward the others. She glances back at Jason and Tracy and Cadena to see if they're moving up.
Jason gives Inari a 'thumbs-up' for her work! "Can anyone stun the worker?" Jason asks, plotting to send RIU in stealth to shock him asleep if not...
"You know how my previous attempts to stun someone have turned out," Tracer notes quietly, still looking for an out of the way place to stash her ex.
"And just when I thought you were being heroic," Jason mutters. "RIU, you're on. Slealth and close quarters stun them, please..."
Brother Cadena lets out a breath - quietly - once he sees that Inari is quite the pro at non-lethal means of incapacitation. Meanwhile, he works with a gadget from his first-aid kit that is meant to weave a spidersilk-like material into bandages, only he's abusing it at the moment to gag Mark with a custom fit, just in case he wakes up in the middle of things.
Contrary to how videos portray them, Inari's Naginata Blade makes no sound as she readies it, in case the worker raises an alarm before she closes in.
With the worker stunned, Tracer offers Mark to Cadena, and whispers to Yappy, "Bring me the crossbow."
The robed canine gingerly takes the redneck warrior, pressing himself back against the machinery frames for what little support and cover they might offer.
The werewolf looks a bit disappointed having his toy taken away, but offers it to her. From what Tracy can see, there are red, blue, and green feathered bolts in the quiver, and a smattering of other arrows. The green one looks like it would immobilize its target; the red one looks like it's meant to do serious damage. She's not familiar with the markings on the blue one.
Inari sneaks up slowly on the far guard, using the monitors for cover.
"Blue for stun, hopefully," Tracer mutters, and arms the crossbow with a blue bolt.
The mage-lord shouts from the southern platform, "What's going on down there? Get the feed re-established, do I need to do everything around here? Heads will roll if it is not re-established within the next minute!"
The lieutenant, distracted, yells back "My Lord! We are doing everything we can, but we may need to send a party back to Tesliem to sort the matter out!"
"I'm sending RIU to the second worker to stun him. Can you aim for the lieutenant? Your weapon is stronger than RIUU's bolt, I expect," Jason whispers to Tracy.
Tracer nods, and starts taking aim.
Yappy looks over at Tracy for direction.
"Think you can get the weapon off the fallen guard without being seen?" Tracy whispers to the werewolf.
The golden vixen sneaks up preparing to knock out the other guard...
Yappy gulps. "I'll try, ma'am. Miss. Sexy."
Tracy just.. blushes and glares at Jason for teaching Mike to do that.
WHACK! The other guard goes down before her mighty sword-hilt, into Inari's arms. She lowers him as well gently to the floor.
Slowly, stealthily, the brown-furred werewolf creeps over the tiles. As he approaches the guard, he tries to relieve him of the gun without banging it against the ground.
"RIU, go to the next worker and get ready to stun him..." Jason thinks.
The minidragon hovers silently through the air, over the lieutenant - no one ever thinks to look up - and gets ready to drop down from ambush onto the anonymous Tesliem worker's shoulders.
The lieutenant continues to be intent on the monitors. "Try boosting the positive flow," he says. "Are you sure you're doing it right? I'm positive you've got the signs reversed on that..."
Being unfamiliar with the crossbow, Tracy takes her time as she aims carefully between the Lieutenant's shoulder blades..
The worker says angrily, "I know my job, okay?" Not turning around, he works furiously trying to send a signal to the other side to boost the drain of blood from the Leviathan. "It's just not responding! Flow is down to zero!"
The bolt flies through the air, leaving a trail of blue... And when it hits, it bounces off of the back of the lieutenant's armor, leaving a glowing blue rune there. He turns and is about to yell when-- PAF! a sudden block of ice forms around him.
The lieutenant struggles against the ice but is unable to shatter it.
Tracy blinks in surprise at the results.
The worker notices the chill. "Sir? What's wrong?" He turns.
RIU, brain fry! Jason orders. The little dragon drops onto the Worker's head and tries to shock him silly!
The worker stiffens as electricity washes over him from head to toes! He passes out, collapsing against the panel where he was working.
"He's also good at fighting dandruff," Jason whispers, grinning.
The lieutenant's eyes move side to side, but he's unable to move. His muscles strain and the iceblock creaks.
Brother Cadena gently sets down the unconscious form of Mark, then rushes over to the closest unconscious guard, doing a quick check to make sure that he's just unconscious, and not, say, about to die from hemorrhaging due to the hit to the head.
The golden vixen straightens as she considers the situation. With the one remaining hostile in a block of ice... She advances toward him. "Make a noise," she says brandishing her laser sword. "And I stick this where the sun doesn't shine." His eyes widen. Clearly he's seen at least one video drama with the famous Naginata Blades.
The lieutenant struggles in vain against the icy grip of the ice. Inari frowns and looks over at Jason. Her eyes clearly convey, One little swipe and we won't have any problems.
"What do we do next?" Brother Cadena whispers to Yappy, who's the only one within seemingly safe whispering range. "Did they say anything about whether we need to take Mark with us? Do we just rush on through the Vortex while we have the chance?"
"I wish," Jason mutters softly when Inari looks at him. He looks to RIU. Though unspoken, the command is probably obvious enough to observers. Bolt the ice block.
Yappy whispers back, "Um... All I heard is that Tracy wants Mark arrested and put in jail." He examines his new rifle, trying to puzzle out the workings. Where's the safety on this thing?
Tracy loads a fresh ice-bolt, and sneaks along the wall of machinery towards Cadena and Yappy and the unconscious technician.
Brother Cadena looks wary as Yappy fiddles with the rifle, noting where it's pointed at all times. "Perhaps you should let Mr. Edwards look at it first," he whispers. "Doing something wrong might make noise - or worse."
"It'll be okay, I've seen lots of guns in videogames," Yappy reassures Cadena. "It didn't look that complicated..." He is momentarily blinded by a flash of electric blue light from the direction of the ice cube.
CRACKLE! RIU winds up and unleashes a powerful bolt of sizzling energy that crashes into the lieutenant's ice block! The lieutenant's eyes roll up as he slumps, still entrapped.
"If only his name were Vodka," Jason mutters, amused as RIU sends the Lieutenant into Shocksville.
Inari dances back a step as the bolt crashes into the ice cube. Her fur sticks up all over. "Thanks, RIU," she mutters, then grins as she powers down her laser sword.
"There should be a door around here," Tracy notes, heading towards the vortex. "Do any of these consoles make sense to you, Jason?"
Brother Cadena hastens to make the rounds of the immediate area, doing a quick check on the stunned workers and guards of Tesliem, to make sure that they're not in need of immediate emergency medical attention (or administering what he can and quickly, should it be necessary) - but with a deliberate focus on not bringing anyone back to consciousness if he can help it.
Jason slinks over to Inari. "I'd prefer your solution ... but they would complain," he admits to the kitsune. He's about to say more, but is distracted by Tracy and goes to look at the console.
"It's ... a lot of gibbrish. The Q-Core is linked to the Tesliem reactor. But ... the readings seem to be going back to normal. That is good, I think," Jason says after some study.
"Can you guess the rate of .. going-back-to-normal-ness?" Tracy asks, checks if the hall door is locked or not. "I mean, is this vortex going to fade out soon, or do we still need to cross through?"
Jason checks his timer. "And ... hm. It hasn't happened yet," he muses, "Must be the bridge closure."
The beam of light from the green vortex grows thinner. The vortex itself seems to be fading slowly, growing smaller, yielding floor back to the Q-Link room as it used to be.
Brother Cadena hurries back over to Tracer's side. "My Lady, it appears that the doors here actually lead back to Avatars corporate property - to the stable world. Perhaps I could bring 'Mark' to the attention of the security forces, to make sure he doesn't escape, while you and Mr. Edwards figure out these devices?"
The white vortex also appears to be dwindling. Only the black vortex remains obstinately the same size, fringed in such a way that shadows seem to reach out from its periphery.
"Slight flaw in that, Cadena," Tracy notes, tapping the dog-man on the chest. "What happens if you leave the area of influence of the vortexes? You could step through the door and become a dog again. But.. even if you turn back, you can still talk, and move quickly. You could search for a guard while we drag everyone outside.."
Yappy hefts his assault rifle, shifting it into a grip that looks normal. "All right! I'm ready to rock and roll," he says in a hushed voice. Then looks up. "Um. Where are the guards?"
"Then ... er ... Yappy?" Brother Cadena offers to Tracer, nodding to the werewolf. "He'd only revert to being human, after all."
"Or.." Tracy says, and goes to the intercom. "We could try to contact Hel and have her send a squad.."
Jason wisely doesn't comment that there is no guarantee Yappy will return to being human.
Brother Cadena frowns. "And yet she hasn't sent a squad here already. I'm ... missing something, I fear."
The brown-furred werewolf scratches behind one ear. "What am I doing again?" he says diffidently as he moves up to Tracy, sensing that he's been volunteered for something.
"That depends," Tracy tells the werewolf. "Do you want to go through those doors and see if you turn human again?" she asks.
"Sure!" Yappy hesitates. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"You don't really want to know," Jason says.
The werewolf looks worried. "Um... Turning into a werewolf wasn't much fun. What if turning back human hurts like that?"
"Well.. you could start to dissolve," Tracer notes, wincing a bit. She then tries to reach the security AD on the intercom.
Brother Cadena walks back from where he'd put an ear to the door, and reports, "We're in luck. It sounds like there are some guards out there after all. They must be hunkered down - perhaps they came under heavy fire from the Tesliem guards here ... or that mage-lord, or something stranger. I can't fault them for not simply charging in here, after all."
The intercom panel reads: "NO SIGNAL"
"Well, I have access to some Q-Core functions here. I could try to turn you back to human. Or make that your permanent body," Jason offers.
Yappy considers this. "What do you like better?" he asks Tracy, looking embarrassed.
Brother Cadena looks aghast that Yappy is deferring on such a critical thing.
"Human," Tracy tells Yappy. "You wouldn't want to be stuck as a werewolf if stuff doesn't work out, right?" she asks, and heads for the doors. "I'll try to talk to the guards."
The werewolf looks a bit disappointed. "Being a wolf is kind of fun," he mutters to Jason. "My old body was always kind of... rubbish. But it would be a bit hard to fit into society. Um, no offense, miss. I'm a big fan, Inari!"
Yappy rattles along, "I mean, I don't have a singing voice like you, and..."
Brother Cadena, meanwhile, lifts up Mark again and works on taking him in a fireman's pull toward the door.
"Well, it's your choice, Mike!" Tracy adds, then opens the doors a crack to peek outside.
"Well, you could remain a shifter, you would just need sources of magic to shift," Jason points out to try and save him from inciting Inari into killing him."
Inari takes it with good humor. She whispers to Jason, "I get that a lot. Someday I wonder if I'll be the poster child for 'species-challenged people'."
"I think there is nothing wrong with how you lock," Jason tells Inari.
The golden vixen purrs smugly. "Thanks, sweetheart. I love the way I look too."
Jason almost tells Inari that she also doesn't look fat, and no, that suit does not make her butt look big ... but self-preservation instincts kick in. "Right, well, lets see what I can access," Jason says instead, looking for any pattern data on Yappy.
Brother Cadena looks like he's about to try whispering something to Tracer, as he drags Mark toward the door, but seeing her being so intent upon things, he opts to stay out of the way.
As Tracy punches the door button, she draws back behind the frame, then peeks out. Avatars LLC-uniformed security robots are there, guns and zappers at the ready. A ladybug-like droid peeps around the edge, and then when its extended sensor/vocal package doesn't get immediately destroyed, it says chirpily. "Hello? Is everything all right?"
"Ah, you're with Hel right?" Tracy asks the 'bug' probe. "We've knocked out the Imperial agents and need them taken to holding and help securing this room. I'm Tracy Trudeau, and I should still be on Hel's 'officially deputized' list."
"Aaand ... nevermind. I can't fix you one way or another. Not enough equipment that is remotely stable. Sorry, Yap. Looks like you're stuck in the flea side of life a bit longer," Jason admits.
Could it possibly be Ed, the same robot that escorted them in? Ed says cheerily, "We were beginning to be worried! HEL expected you to send a signal when you wanted us to charge in." The ladybug-like robot tilts its head toward the intercom. "The BLACK is fighting hard to retain control over this room though, so we couldn't track what you were doing in here."
"I am Brother Cadena," the canine introduces himself. "I ... ah ... am an altered form of experimental subject AVA-808-X-024. I do not know whether I am stable outside of this area. I have in my possession an individual who escaped from custody previously: Mark Berkowitz. Might we turn him over? Carrying him with us might pose risks to all parties involved."
One of the humanoid police-style armored humanoid droids nods at Tracy as well. "Acknowledged, Miss Trudeau." He steps toward the unconscious guards, then hesitates before the lieutenant trapped in an iceblock. "A very efficient method of securing the prisoner, miss."
Yappy looks secretly relieved. "It isn't so bad once... Ack, did you have to mention fleas?" He scratches vigorously behind a cheekruff.
"Yeah.. I'm sure it'd be a great trick at parties," Tracy agrees. "This one is Mark Berkowitz.. make sure he's kept separate from the Imperial detainees - he's eventually going to the police. And Yappy.. uh.. do you want to go with the robots or stick with us?"
The other droid obligingly takes Mark from Cadena. "Mark Berkowitz. Processing." Its eyes dim for a second, then light up again. "Illicit orders to remand Mark to Chaz Burgundy's custody in the Q-Link room detected. Correcting. Subject is to be confined to Security Holding Cell 5 on order of Vice President Holly Trudeau."
"Personally, I think you look cool like that," Jason whispers to Yappy. "Being human is boring."
Brother Cadena smiles. "I'm glad to hear that your mother is back in the action," he says to Tracy.
Yappy looks a bit wary. "Well... I'm a bit worried about this 'dissolving away' business, or suddenly turning human, without Cadena here to help," he admits. "I'd better come with you. As long as I don't get shot, it should be less painful!"
"Thanks," Tracy tells the droid, feeling that a weight's been lifted from her shoulders. "And in that case, Yappy.. have one of the bots show you how to use that gun."
Ed tilts its head sideways. its voice changes to female... A voice Tracy knows very well. "Tracy Ellen Trudeau, what have you done to yourself?"
"Tell Holly to send squids!" Jason shouts in the direction of the bot.
"Vice President Trudeau?" Brother Cadena asks. "Er ... we are in an unstable area. She's not at fault."
Rolling her eyes, Tracy whines, "Mooommm, don't embarrass me while I'm trying to save the world, okay? I'm sure this is all just temporary and I'll go back to normal once the breach in reality is closed."
A long audible sigh. "Jason?"
"Fat chance of that! You weren't normal to begin with," Jason shouts.
"Don't listen to him, he's dressed up as an armored fox right now," Tracy counters.
"And yes, oh great Holly of the unfortunate shortness and bad hair?" Jason asks of the bot.
"Is there any reason I shouldn't have the robots on the other doors rush in and shoot everything that's moving in there?" asks Holly. Ed's video-head turns to regard the room. "Things appear rather... Helter-skelter just now."
"Vice President Chaz Burgundy is being held hostage under armed guard!" Brother Cadena interjects quickly.
"I wouldn't advise it. Chaz is still being held prisoner past the vortex. Now I know you have corporate ambitions, but shooting the president is not a good career move," Jason teases. "The Q-0Core readings are slowly returning to normal, we've cut off the link to the Diadem ... and Tesliem will blow up any minute now."
Yappy discusses guns with a guard-robot while the guard patiently extrudes plastic tape from its utility belt and uses that to secure the workers and guards. "Ah! Great," the werewolf enthuses. "So that was the safety after all. And the fingerprint interlock? ... Okay, um right. I don't know if I still have the same fingerprints..."
"There's also a sorcerer and a giant spider," Tracy adds, shivering at the thought of the monster arachnid.
"Hm. do you have a really big can of bug spray?" Jason asks,.
"Tesliem?!" Ed looks startledly back to Jason. "We'll have to evacuate all players from that sector, it could get unstable. That's a major plot nexus. I'll get someone on that... Just whip yourself up one, you're good at improvising," Holly says flippantly.
"Bug spray? But I don't have that huge can of deodorant you always carried around," Jason retorts. "And yes, Tesliem. It's going to blow. quite spectacularly, I might add."
"Anyway.. if there's nothing more we can do from here, I guess we should get going into the deep dark there," Tracy says, gesturing to the remaining vortex. "No idea where it goes though.."
Holly shakes her head. "I'm not going to ask how... We don't have time. Do you have a plan for freeing Chaz?"
"Might we see if the security robots have any sort of ... stunning devices? Restraints we could use?" Brother Cadena asks Tracer. "It could be useful for apprehending individuals. Or, say, restraining allies if they suddenly and inexplicably undergo radical personality changes."
"Well, one solution is we kill him, sort of, then hope medical can save him in time," Jason suggests. "But so far, no, we don't have a plan yet. Let me see if I can find out what is going on in that vortex."
In the distance, the Tesliem mage-lord yells, "What's going on down there? Report, lieutenant!"
Holly pauses. "You'd better get going. I'll try to distract him here."
"Just don't sing. You're a terrible singer," Jason claims as he steps away from the console.
The nearby security droid clicks apologetically to Cadena. "I regret, sir, our weapons are designed not to be removable so that they cannot be used against us."
"Ooo, right, tasers," Tracy says. "And the other two rifles.. I'm sure Jason and Inari would appreciate them."
Brother Cadena nods to the robots, not particularly surprised. "Thank you for checking." He turns to the Ed/Holly robot and says, "Thank you, Vice President Trudeau, and we wish you luck. I will have a detailed report when all of this is through, including several details I believe will be of special interest to you."
"Ahem, T have built in bolt cannons," Jason points out. "Inari would love to have a sniper rifle, though!"
Inari says, "I don't think guards have that as standard issue." She shakes her head. "It'll be all right, Jason. Let's go, we don't want to get caught out here."
The robed canine advances toward the Black Vortex, taking a deep breath and bowing his head in a quick prayer as he braces himself for another reality jump.
"Bye mom, love you!" Tracy says, blowing a kiss towards Ed. "And remember: if anything is broken, it's all Jason's fault!" she claims before wading into the darkness with her crossbow at the ready.
Ed dips its head toward Cadena. "Thank you, Cadena," it says in Holly's voice. The other police droids escort their prisoners out... One carries the lieutenant, iceblocked. The ladybug-like droid itself deploys in the middle of the platform fragment, raising one of its 'wings' as a shield.
Yappy dashes after Tracy. "Hey, wait for meeeee..."
"All right is relative," Jason claims, "I prefer overwhelming odds in our favor." He moves back to Inari's side and once there, squeezes her hand briefly. "Just remember, BLACK no longer has any sway over you. So ... if you get the urge to eat my head, ignore it. I'm sure we can get a pizza after we save the building. And if we're lucky, we might only be charged half price instead of full. Bah. who am I kidding? No one ever gives those who risk their lives a discount. Sure, you're going to save the world! but that potion still costs full price," he babbles. "Er, anyway, right, onward. Into darkness. Why does it have to be so dark..."
Overhead, strands of giant spider-silk shoot across the room. It appears the mage-lord has gotten tired of waiting and is coming over himself to have a closer look.
Inari picks up the fallen assault rifle from the second guard. She stops Jason's babbling with a kiss, and then pulls him after her. "Time to go, honey."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-06-26-back-in-potemkin.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 4:00 PM Eastern
The tiles on the floor change subtly beneath their feet as they walk into the black fog. It's the smells that reach them first, acrid and industrial and electric, and the sounds that come next, distant explosions and battle cries. Somewhere, people are battling.
It looks familiar, like Tracy's apartment level, and yet different. Instead of ordinary aircars, fanciful boats and beasts of burden sit upon the skywalk, waiting for their masters. Civilians have vanished from the floor, to be replaced by a few suspicious-looking creatures and powerful human-like beings roaming to and fro, as if searching for something. And behind them stretches the alien cityscape of New Metropolis, with giant airships cruising the sky, flashing the logos of fictional companies.
Still Lady Tracer in appearance, Tracy steps into the halls of the Eastern Tower with Brother Cadena at her side, Fuseli and Yappy trailing her. Jason tromps out of the fog behind her, clad in golden kitsune-shaped armor. RIU clings to his shoulder, peering about worriedly, and Inari lays a hand over his right arm as if he were escorting her to the ball.
Well, in certain lights, it could be seen as a heck of a date.
"We're in the Gloaming," Tracer announces, in case anyone wasn't sure. "Yappy, Cadena.. you're the only ones who can sense portals if we need one."
"Give me an hour and I bet I could build a device to track a portal," Jason claims as he peers about the desolation. "And ... I still don't see the allure of these games. You want industrial and wrecked, come down to the slums. It even includes free muggings and bullets in your butt."
Brother Cadena scans his surroundings warily, particularly since there are already plenty of suspicious-looking creatures about, but he takes a moment to glance askance to Tracer. "But say the word, and I shall seek one. I...." He pauses a moment, regarding the stand in hand, and then his own hand clasping it. "I appear to be stable for now. I am already adapted to this environment." His ears flick. "We haven't much time. Something ... to the west, and above. It's somewhere higher in this tower." He holds his staff out, feeling for something in the air. "Perhaps at the top. I am not sure what 'it' is, but I can't escape this feeling. Something is forming, with a considerable amount of Potential."
Yappy looks confused, holding his assault rifle uncomfortably as if trying to find the best way to manage its weight. "Sense a portal? How? I mean, if it's a creepy crawly feeling through my fur like something bad is going to happen, I've had that for the last... I forget when I wasn't feeling like that, actually."
Fuseli snorts. The black nightmare turns his head to Lady Tracer, as if to ask why did we bring him along?
"Potential energy is perfectly safe. I'm more worried about kinetic energy as that is what imparts damage," Jason nerd-quips.
"Okay, we go up," Tracer says. "Sasha opened a portal in the restaurant up there in the real world, so that could be her base here."
Brother Cadena breaks out his reverie a moment to place his free hand on Yappy's shoulder. "Fear not. Yes, these are dangerous times, but you are among friends. Individually, we may be weak, but with the binding power of the Light, we are strong together."
In the distance, there are shouts. "Spread out! Keep looking, there's got to be a clue around here somewhere!" "Back off! We were here first!" "Lord Demeritorious submits to no one's authority! You may comb the remnants after I have perused this area."
"Those sort of lines only work in the movies ... and barely even then," Jason whispers to Inari. Louder and to the others he says, "So up? Well, far be it for me to dissuade people from using technology ... but I think stairs would be safer than an elevator, all things considered."
RIU licks Jason's left ear. Normally this would tickle, but he doesn't even feel it through the helmet.
Inari grins at Jason. Unlike Yappy, she holds her assault rifle with an air of easy competence.
"I shall defer to your expertise, Mr. Edwards," Brother Cadena offers. "Whichever route we take, we must not stay here. The Wild Hunt is still on."
"This is VR... bold proclamations may affect the favor of the universe and all that," Tracer notes, and peeks around the corner towards the commotions. "That sounded like that guy who wanted to recruit you into the Army of Darkness, Cadena."
Yappy looks comforted by Cadena, despite Jason's skepticism. "All right. I, um..." He looks around. "It figures, the way we want to go is blocked by a fight waiting to happen!"
"Well, we could try stealing flying mounts and take the outside route," Tracer offers. "Or go around the longer way to the lifts, away from Demeritorious."
"This is a donut shaped room, we could take the longer route around," Jason points out.
Brother Cadena checks his robes, and looks mildly surprised when he finds a small black card, which he tucks back away. "If all else fails, m'lady, we could rack up more debts. But first...." He holds out his staff. "May the Light show us, subtly, a way to the pinnacle of this tower, avoiding our enemies if it be possible - preferably by stairs or by air if such an opportunity is available."
Outside, a dark grey airship drifts by, its hull armored, its gondola bristling with cannons. Tracy and Cadena have seen it before - the Black Thorn. It exchanges broadsides with a white sky barque that is trying to approach the top of the tower.
Sparks appear fitfully around the tip of Brother Cadena's staff. Two lines draw ghostily away from it, one toward the center airshaft, the other straight up.
"The factions are being fractious again," Tracer notes. "We got the help of the League of Shadows last time, but they're pretty mercenary. And it looks like they're fighting the Blessed Light.."
Demeritorious yells from inside the Tower, "Arise, my loyal minions! Chastise these fools who refuse to bow to the might of the Army of Darkness!" The vampire and the sorceress look to one another, then begin to summon their own defenses.
"Oops, I forgot that everyone can see the path beams Cadena creates!" Tacer notes, and draws her sword.
Brother Cadena frowns. "'Subtly' was evidently not achieved."
Jason blinks. "I have a hard time not laughing at the melodrama," he admits as he shakes his head. "I think we'd best just hurry and avoid further fighting."
The lines fade to near-imperceptibility the further they go from the staff, until one might miss them if one were not looking actively for them.
"Come on, lets get moving," Jason says as he heads towards the central area, angling to go right and around so that he can get a good view of the centrral shaft.
"RP jerk!" yells the vampire as he whips his cloak open, unleashing a swarm of bats that cluster thickly enough to hide him from sight. "This is a big place, you'd think there's plenty of room for us all to have a piece of the action!"
"There are apartments we can duck into if we need cover," Tracer adds, and follows after Jason while trying to stick close to the wall.
Brother Cadena nods, following Jason's lead.
The sorceress visibly facepalms. "Honey, he's Army of Darkness. That's License to be a Jerk territory."
As they press on into the Eastern Tower, the nearby grey wyvern squawks, but amidst the noise of fighting both here and out in the area at large, this draws little attention. The airshaft itself appears clear. To the north side is an angel who looks familiar to Tracy and Cadena - Irielle of the Blessed Light. She is sitting calmly on a bench, fiddling with some magical apparatus of some kind that looks like an overgrown compass combined with a sextant.
To the east, several doors line the wall, each leading to an apartment of its own, looking very like the ones in Tracy's apartment level. The far ones have already been opened, including the center one leading into what would have been Tracy's apartment if this were the real world. Someone must be searching them.
"Do we have enough ways to fly to just head up the shaft?" Jason asks. "I can carry Inari, I think. What about everyone else?"
"I don't know if Fuseli can carry three," Tracer says, and looks to the Nightmare for confirmation.
Demeritorious unleashes a gout of flame toward the vampire! "Taste hellfire!" he bellows. Bats crisp and die, but it seems as if most of the swarm remains intact.
Fuseli nuzzles his master, but doesn't look sanguine.
"We'd need another mount," Tracer translates. "Who wants to grab that wyvern back there?"
"Or we could just all take the air car," Jason suggests. "Come on, pick something and lets go. Do you have any preferences, Inari?""
"Irielle would be a handy ally," Tracer says, then agrees, "The barque would be most convenient, but also a bigger target. Can you figure out how to fly it, Jason?"
Brother Cadena frowns. "Stealing a vehicle or mount from innocent bystanders seems out of character for agents of the Light." He maneuvers up against the corner, trying for a better look on the central area. "Lady Tracer, perhaps I can approach a potential ally to seek alternate transportation. I could step out first, so as not to betray your position, in case any of these are of the Wild Hunt - with your permission, that is."
Inari considers the situation. "You could take several trips," she suggests. "Two of us can remain behind to hold the fort."
"Hey, it's me. Disasters don't follow me everywhere!" Jason claims. "I'll go check the barge-thing, you get as many allies as you can. Kiss her if you have to."
"Or we could try an orb," Tracer notes, and produces one. It's an Avatar's orb of course.. but probably worth a shot. "Lady Irielle," she whispers to it.
The sorceress responds to this attack on her vampire friend by bringing her fists together and conjuring up a ball of lightning. "Dog of a demon! You'll pay for that!" Then she swings it back and unleashes it, one hand behind her, the other sweeping forward, as if stretching it out into a levinbolt, and unleashing it, dramatically.
The lightning bolt hurtles straight forward Demeritorious, and would strike if not for one of his imps heroically throwing itself into the path! Or being clumsily caught, depending on how one looks at it. The imp emits a tiny little death-squeal.
The orb crackles, colors racing up and down the spectrum, red, green, blue, back down to yellow, and then becomes a clear gold, tiny dots racing around in the center. Across the airshaft, Irielle looks startled in midst-adjusting.
Inari follows Jason. "You realize wyverns tend to be carnivorous?" she mutters to him.
"Well done, Champion!" Brother Cadena whispers to Tracer. "I had not anticipated that such an artifact would work here, given the ... er ... links involved."
"I think it worked," Tracer notes, and hands the orb over to Cadena.
"Good thing I don't look like meat," Jason points out. "Well, hopefully..."
The angel reaches into her robes and takes out a small orb. She focuses on it intently... and her voice emanates from the orb that Cadena now holds. "Hello?"
The golden vixen murmurs, "Wyverns think like dragons... Armor means tasty meat filling." She smirks, eyes crinkled a bit as if laughing silently.
"Lady Irielle," Brother Cadena whispers into the orb, "I apologize for this interruption. This is Brother Cadena. I have been tasked with reaching the top of this tower, but have arrived in the middle of a conflict, the parameters of which I do not understand, and I haven't the convenience of flight or other magical conveyances. Might I trouble you for some guidance, if you have the time?"
"You're supposed to be supportive!" Jason mutters to Inari, though he at least sounds amused by it.
"Oh, I remember you! You were the one that Demeritorious got into a fit over," Irielle says, smiling. "He was in such a snit when you got away. Did you find a faction to your liking then? What may I do for you?"
The grey wyvern sniffs the air suspiciously and looks about, but decides eventually, as Jason moves cautiously and keeps his distance, the armored fox-shaped person doesn't appear to be a threat.
"You should join Blessed Light if you have the option now," Tracer whispers to Cadena.
The skybarque past the wyvern looks like a sailing boat, except that the sails are mounted to the sides and lift is provided by what looks like a glowing blue stone mounted in a curving over-keel strut. The name on the side reads, "Half Past Time To Go," in cursive gold letters.
Off in the distance, the battle continues between the vampire and the sorceress, and the oversized demon lord and his army of imps. The vampire disappears from one spot, swirled up by his bats... And reappers on the other side of Demeritorious, forcing him to split his attentions. He bites an imp! And promptly makes a horrible face. "Ugh! Demon blood."
"Oh look, it even says it's time to go. How fortunate for us. We'll only be doing what to wants to do, so the owner can't get mad about it," Jason pronounces as he approaches the barge. "Now, lemme see how to board and get this thing going..."
"Ah yes, thank you for remembering. I am not formally aligned with a faction at this time, but it's safe to say that I do serve the Light," Brother Cadena says, glancing aside to Tracer. "I am fulfilling obligations to several parties who have assisted me in getting to where I am now. I'm on the same floor as you now, by the way. I fear that if I approach, I might cause trouble, and stealth is NOT my strong point."
Inari peers. "It looks like it's magically based, not technological. Seems out of place here."
"Anything technological will appear to be magic in the right situation," Jason claims and continues to try to figure out how to work the blasted thing.
Rather than a simple anchor, the barque is held in place by several beams of light emanating from mystic runes at stern and bow.
The angel frowns slightly. "Oh, are you after the Map too? I'm afraid you'll have a lot of company, dear. Everyone seems to have gotten the idea that it's somewhere here, and is combing the place over."
"Something tells me that's probably what we need to find to get out of here," Tracer says. "Could be what you detected up top too."
The runes look familiar to Jason... And in a few moments, he places it - they're similar to the ones used in Avatars, with just enough differences to avoid lawsuits. The boat responds to the voice of its owner, and under ordinary circumstances, that's unchangeable - but in a pinch, Jason can tinker with his suit's speakers to produce any sort of voice, given enough time and a sample to match it from. Now he just needs to figure out how to get the sample.
"The Map?" Brother Cadena repeats into the orb. "No, I haven't heard of that. I'm only following the guidance of the Light. The Light allows me to find things ... but it doesn't necessarily tell me what I'm supposed to find, alas. There is going to be an event - a terrible one - at the top of this tower. I fear that the effects could be ... ah ... how to put it ... permanent. I have gathered a few fellow travelers but ... honestly, we're all a bit new to this, I'm afraid." He looks for his chance to maneuver to a new position. "Perhaps we could help each other? I could see if the Light will show me where this Map is."
"Hmmm," Jason ponders. He starts looking for evidence the boat is owned by, say, the vampire!
The pretty-- some might say sexy or glamorous-- blonde angel tilts her head. "Well, Demeritorious is causing a scene again, so I would say he's pretty distracted. I promise not to yell that you're here if you come my way." Her eyes twinkle.
"Thank you! I shall be over presently," Brother Cadena says to the orb. He looks back to Lady Tracer for confirmation, and holds out the orb.
Taking the orb back, Tracer says, "We'll cover you, until Jason gets back with the boat."
Brother Cadena nods, and makes haste to cross the distance.
The demon is momentarily blinded as the sorceress throws another levinbolt his way... But not so blinded as not to catch a hint of people moving down the way from him. "Hah! Bring all the allies you want, Demeritorious shall defeat them all!"
The sorceress looks puzzled, glancing to the sides, but not behind her. "Dear," she says. "We don't need backup for a penny-ante demon lord like you. Now get off our backs and stop trying to turn everything into a fight!"
Brother Cadena, having failed to avoid the notice of the demon (the fact that he's glowing and has animated chains drifting around in his wake do detract from his basic attempts at stealth) picks up the pace, making his way on around the circle.
Tracer mounts Fuseli, so she can use the cannon if needed. "Yappy, hug the other corner, just in case," she suggests.
Jason's brow does a dance in his helmet. Having a bad feeling about this, he says in his own voice, "Ship, disengange anchors and prepare to depart."
"Unauthorized operator detected," the boat responds in a neutral female voice. "Owner has been alerted."
"Okay, so not my clone. That's actually a weight off my mind," Jason admits. So, he starts rifling through the belongings of said owner for the moment, not exactly concerned that the owner has been notified.
As Brother Cadena passes by the easternmost apartment, he notices something odd - it looks just like Tracy's apartment on the inside. And there's someone inside, rummaging through the closet. At that moment, the mysterious intruder looks up, then starts to move toward the window.
His form is indistinct, as if he's wearing some kind of camouflage magic or technology.
Brother Cadena continues to jog toward the angel, trying not to evidence any notice of the home invader. "Lady Champion," he says, activating his headset, "the apartment I just passed appears to be a synecdoche to yours on Earth. There is an intruder employing cloaking technology, ransacking it. I have been spotted."
The boat contains a variety of lockpicking and electronic interference gizmos, including a directional laser microphone, a sniper rifle, and several pistols, each modified in different ways, practically everything the well-equipped agent needs in the field. As Jason looks through the gear, the boat continues to warn him, "You are tampering with equipment that belongs to the Shadows. If you continue to interfere, we cannot guarantee your safety from retaliatory actions."
Inari's eyes light up. "Who is this guy you're robbing?" she asks Jason. "I'd like to meet him."
"What?" Tracer asks through her own headset. "I'll check it out, keep moving towards Irielle." She gets down from her saddle, and tells Yappy, "I'm going to check something out, stay close to Fuseli."
"I'm not entirely sure. I thought it might have been my copy, but it doesn't appear to be," he notes. And ... since he can't take the ship he decides to be annoying and look for a way to rig the weaponry to explode and just take the ship with it!
That was Jason
The angel looks over toward Cadena and smiles encouragingly. She stands, putting the sextant-compass away. "You're here," she says. "But didn't you say you had friends?"
Tracer sneaks around the corner, moving as stealthily as she can manage to avoid drawing attention.
As Lady Tracer approaches the door that leads to what would be her apartment in the real world, she's struck by how similar it looks, down to the scratches. There's the same rack with track and gym trophies, and... There's the camouflaged man, considering Jason ransacking his skybarque. He whirls around, catching sight of Tracy. His face is a blur, but the way he moves... It's got to be Jack Fisher.
"I know I owe you for your help last time, but really.. did you have to ransack my apartment?" Tracer asks the man.
Brother Cadena jogs to a stop, ducking his head humbly to the angel. "A couple of them took off to find other conveyance, preferring not to leave things to chance." He spares a glance back to the apartment, then says, "I would be happy to ask the Light to show me the way to this Map. I must note, however, that I owe a debt to the Shadows from earlier, and if they ask me to find it for them, I am obliged to give them the same assistance. Given how you said that "everyone" is looking for this, I imagine it's only a matter of time."
The boat equipment is locked and secured... But for someone who's been everywhere as Jason has, it takes only a minute or so for him to work through the code. Ah. Here's the local equivalence of C-4. Naturally, it's named D-5, and purports to be highly explosive magical energy sealed into an inert chemical matrix, triggered by the use of an appropriate runed detonator.
"Oooh, heheheh. Science is a lot more fun when you have dangerous explosives," Jason claims as he gets into the locked crate. Now ... to just find the detonator...
The man straightens, and his voice confirms his identity. "Your apartment, miss? I'm afraid I don't quite place who you are, but to the best of my knowledge, these apartments are unowned and unoccupied." He frowns, studying Lady Tracer, whose appearance has changed from the last time he saw her. "If you'll excuse me, someone is trying to break into my boat."
"Hold on.. is it the one just outside?" Tracer asks. "Oh, I'm.. I was Treasa. I'm with Brother Cadena. You're Jack, right?" She keys her headset, and asks, "Hey Jason, are you messing with that boat?"
The angel tilts her head to the side. "Really? What did they do to incur such a great debt?" she wonders.
"You've changed," Fisher says flatly. "But yes, that is it."
"Of course I am," comes Jason's reply. "The owner very unhelpfully made it hard to steal, so I'm helpfully making it into rubble..."
"I'm talking to the owner right now," Tracer notes. "He's an ally.. sort of. He helped with getting Yappy away from the Wild Hunt. Don't break anything, we already owe him big!"
"Awww," comes Jason's reply. "But there are lovely explosives here to set off. It would have made a spectacular explosion."
"They provided an escort to the last thing I was finding," Brother Cadena says. "In exchange, I am to find something for them, which has not yet been specified. It could be anything, really. One problem with my ability, however, is that at times it has a way of making the object of my search visible to everyone, not just to myself or to my patrons."
"We don't want to draw attention, remember?" Tracer points out, then says to Jack, "Okay, your boat should be fine. Don't suppose you could give some of us a lift? Cadena is going to try and locate the Map, and we need to get to the top of the tower."
"But it would draw attention away," Jason argues over the communication channel. "I never get to have any fun."
Outside, the vampire lunges for Demeritorious! The demon lord swats him aside with one hand, laughing, and the sorceress screams as he thumps against the wall. He struggles back to his feet, groaning. "O-P," he grumbles.
Fisher raises an eyebrow as 'formerly Treasa' argues over thin air. "Yes... I suppose that I could. I have a bit of information for your friend Cadena as well."
Brother Cadena is distracted by the scream, looking concerned, but he doesn't break away from the conversation with the angel.
"I'm going to blow something up in this world," Jason tells Inari and even waggles his armored index finger at her. He then sits down to sulk for a moment.
Irielle considers. "Well, that would be something of a disadvantage right now," she agrees. "I was just here on the off chance that I'd be able to pick up something, but all my aetherometer is telling me is that there is... Was some kind of disturbance here, just that way." She nods toward the southeastern skywalk.
"Okay, what is it?" Tracer asks, tapping her headset. "I can tell him, but he's busy with Irielle right now. And.." She pauses, and stares at the trophies. Then she steps into the kitchen area and looks inside the microwave oven for Mark's ruined PDA.
It's there, minus the battery and data chip, along with a clip of bullets.
"This.. this is impossible, isn't it?" Tracer mutters, and then goes to see if the closet is actually full of her clothes.
The sorceress, concerned for her vampire friend, runs to his side, throwing up a magical shield to deflect Demeritorious's assault. "Honey! Are you okay?" The vampire groans rubbing his side. "I think I'm hurting in real life from that!"
The closet opens with exactly the same smell of coats and cedar-scented mothballs.
Inari looks over at Jason. "So, no boom?"
Brother Cadena nods to the angel, then glances to the southeast. "In that direction is where the opening appeared for me to return to this world. Upon arriving here, I received subtle direction from the Light that I should go to the top of the tower, but the sounds of combat hint at hostilities to be avoided. I hope that after reaching the top, I will receive further instruction." He frowns, upon hearing the vampire's comment. "Oh no. Please...." He turns back to the angel.
"Hey, everyone?" Tracer notes over the headset. "I'm in my apartment. All my stuff is here. Even the stuff I hid. That's not good, is it? I think we need to hurry."
"No boom. Maybe we should go kill that annoying demon or something. Tracy is trying to arrange passage from the owner or some such boring stuff," Jason says as he gets to his feet and leaves the boat. He does take one of the bocks of explosives with him, however. "No, that isn't good," he agrees over the comm.
Jack Fisher looks at Lady Tracer oddly. "Is something wrong?" he asks. "I recognized this area from the video of the terrorists, and thought it worth checking out, but..."
"It's an exact copy of my real apartment, Jack," Tracer says quietly. "The worlds are merging here. Let's get back to your boat. If it can fit inside the tower, we can scoop up Cadena.."
The vampire grits his teeth. As Demeritorious gathers up his strength for another devastating breath of demonflame, he says to the sorceress, "I'll manage. Two birds strategy, ready?"
Brother Cadena checks his headset. "Lady Champion? Serious problem. Harm to entities in this world may result in actual harm to their counterparts elsewhere. The forms themselves may be synecdoches. Request permission to intervene." His voice raises in tension as he broadcasts the warning and request.
"You are not to go near the demon!" Tracer snaps over the headset. "We have to stop whatever is building on the top of the tower; that should separate the realities again. Stay where you are and we'll pick you up."
"Let's go Jack," Tracer says, hurrying back to the central atrium.
"RIU, can you carry this little bundle of explosive goodness?" Jason asks the little dragon on his shoulder as he holds up the D-% pack.
The Shadows rogue heads toward his boat with long strides. "Well, then." He eyes the hallway. "The sails might have a little trouble making it through the entrance, but if we fold them and do a little hauling..."
RIU beeps! It looks like the D-5 pack will just about fit his lifting capability. He hovers up into the air.
Brother Cadena winces. Resigned, he says into the headset, "Understood. I shall comply." He casts a worried look across the way to the vampire and sorceress. "Lady Irielle, I fear my time here is short. I offer to ask the Light to show the way to your Map, and I shall try to be subtle about it. In exchange, if the guidance satisfies your requirements, I request assistance in speedy transport to the top of this tower. If this is not acceptable, I humbly apologize for taking your time."
"Think you can cloak and go plant that out the lord, annoying, red guy?" Jason asks the dragon. Into the comm Jason says, "I'm going to give the vampire and his snoggums some help. Fear not!"
"Don't kill anyone!" Tracer urges into the comm, and tells Jack, "I've got a horse, or we can make Jason push."
Irielle blinks. "Oh! You just want an airlift? Well, I can do that," she says with a smile. "It's no trouble, you don't need to play the make-a-deal game with me."
Jack chuckles. "That will do admirably. So where is Brother Cadena?"
"For a goth you're awfully concerned about people living," Jason remarks into the comm. "I doubt this will kill a demon ... but it'll sure hurt!"
Tracer points back to the northern section of the tower.
RIU pops out of visibility! While no one else can see it, Jason senses his Avatar floating away from him, toward where the demon lord is trying to burn his way through the sorceress's shield.
Brother Cadena nods. "That would be most appreciated, Lady Irielle. Let me see how my traveling companions are doing." He checks his headset. "Champion? Lady Irielle says that an 'airlift' would be simple. Have you already found transport for the others?"
"Jack Fisher is taking us up, so if you can catch a ride from the angel, we can meet up top," Tracer replies. "Also, Jack has some information for you."
"Think you can snipe the explosive?" Jason asks Inari. "You do look ever so sexy when you're about to send someone on a trip..."
Just as the shield seems about to collapse, the vampire dodges to the left, toward the lift shaft, and the sorceress breaks to the right! The flames flood the wall singing them.
The golden vixen smirks. "If that were ordinary C4, a bullet wouldn't do the trick... But since this is a game?" She hefts her assault rifle and checks its scope. "Everything explodes."
Brother Cadena nods. "Understood, Champion. I shall make haste." He signs off his transmitter, and bows to Lady Irielle. "It seems everyone else was busy while I was jogging around the circle. I am the only one without transportation. If you can show me the way to an 'airlift,' I would be grateful."
"Just hold still," the angel says as she stands and moves up close to Cadena... In hugging range!
"Why, you just say the sweetest things," Jason teases. "Lets go help those two out while Tracy gets us the boat, eh?"
Brother Cadena blinks, not quite sure what happens next.
RIU continues to float toward the demon lord while he's distracted trying to figure out which of the sorceress and the vampire to strike next!
Jack Fisher calls his boat. "To me! It's half past time to go!" His boat shuts down its anchor and starts to float his way, eerily. The wyvern squawks at its passage, startled.
Irielle hugs Cadena around his chest! She spreads her wings out and beats them once, then twice.
Once she's close enough, Tracer mounts up on Fuseli. "Yappy, get in the boat with Jack. If you have to use your gun, you'll do better than you would as my tail gunner."
The brown-furred werewolf tears his gaze away from the fight. "Got it, miss," he says. "After you, sir!"
As RIU attempts to attach the D-5 to Demeritorious, the demon feels an unexplained touch on his side and whirls around! The mini-dragon barely manages to escape being swatted -- that blow feels unearthly powerful!
Brother Cadena, meanwhile, holds his breath. Not because he has any good reason for doing so, that is, but it just seems the thing to do.
"Time to be a distraction," Tracer says, and guides Fuseli towards the central airshaft.
Demeritorious whirls around. "Where is the pest that dared to lay hands on the great Demeritorious? Show yourself!"
"Bah, he got lucky!" Jason tells RIU over their link, "You can show him that he may be bigger, you're better!"
The demon looks around, but sees... no one except for Irielle hugging some brown robed person, a woman of strange armor on a flying black nightmare, a strange fox-armored person with a golden fox at his side, and the fleeing sorceress and vampire. "Imp! Chase the vampire," he orders of his remaining minion. "He's wounded, he can't go far. The rest of you-- flee before the awesome might of the great demon lord Demeritorious!"
The imp shambles after the vampire, hopping and giggling madly.
"Behold the power of hellfire!" Demeritorious gathers flames upon his hands and prepares to channel them in a devastating burst straight for the nightmare and its rider, the closest and largest of the newcomers.
Fuseli is nearly caught by the fire, but manages to veer aside as the vicious flames wash into the central airspace!
"Hey, watch it there, brimstone britches!" Tracer yells.
"Hail, fallen creature of the darkest Abyss!" Brother Cadena calls out to the imp as it pursues the vampire. "By what authority have you been permitted to escape from the place of eternal torment before the trumpet has sounded? What circle of the Inferno do you hail from, and to what Principality do you pledge allegiance? By the authority of the Heavens, I demand that you give a full accounting before you pursue that sinner!" He goes on like this for as long as the angel still keeps him within shouting distance of the small demon, making an occasional reference to Dante's Divine Comedy, but with a few genuine Scriptures referenced as well.
"Drop it on his toes, RIU!" Jason orders the little dragon while he takes aim with his own arc-bolt apparatus at the demon directly. "Inari, prepare to snipe the bomb..."
Irielle leaps upward with Brother Cadena! Sunlight pierces through the airshaft at just the right moment and angle to catch her wings and illuminate them with dazzling gold at the tips. The imp shrieks and then kneels down before him. "I didn't do nuttin' it was some other demon you can't prove anything I didn't do nuttin'!"
Demeritorious senses RIU's proximity and swats again! Recovering itself, the minidragon gives up on trying to attach it to him, and drops the package at his feet before making tracks away.
The golden vixen lines her assault rifle up and prepares to fire, aiming for the small package.
"Suck ozone, sulfur sycophant," Jason tells the demon and raises his right hand, the dual induction rings whirring away and building up a charge!
Jack Fisher gets in the boat and pulls the sails in, while Yappy pushes it through the hallway. "We're halfway through," the rogue assures the brown werewolf. "Just keep pushing."
A bright blue bolt of lightning cracks across the room from Jason's gauntlet! The demon writhes as the bolt manages to punch through his remaining shields, already depleted by the sorceress's attacks. "Argh! You will answer for that, pitiful mortal!"
"Yeah yeah, leave a message on the answering machine and I'll get back to you," Jason retorts.
"Lay it on him!" Jason orders RIU, then takes aim at the demon too!
Yappy finds a burst of energy, momentarily swelling into immense size, and shoves the skybarque the rest of the way! As the boat clears the sides of the hall, Jack unfurls the sails, angling them to provide upward lift. He reaches down over the back to give Yappy a hand up.
Irielle floats upward with Brother Cadena, toward the sunlit top.
As Jason fires again, lightning washes over Demeritorious. He writhes in agony, his armor burning and melting under its effect. It reminds him of a flat movie he saw a long time ago...
RIU gathers its energy, curling into a coil around a ball of lightning, its armor flaring out with bursts of magic into elaborate curliques... Then straightens, unleashing a devastating bolt! The intense light briefly silhouettes everyone nearby, turning them into negative images.
Demeritorious crumples to one knee, struggling to remain upright and conscious. "No! This cannot be happening! I, the great demon lord, cannot be defeated by mortal hands!"
And then Inari squeezes off a tight burst of three bullets.
"Not mortal hands ... a kitsune's hands," Jason points out helpfully.
The D-5 explosive takes the impact. Propelled by the blast right under the demon, it sparks... And then explodes into a huge cloud of flames and smoke!
The imp is consumed by the flames. "I see the Liiiii..." crisp
And Demeritorious himself... Spreads his wings, just as the explosives go off. The flames wash over his form, leaving horrible scars and burns as he is knocked into a gateway of hellfire, which closes a moment later! "You'll pay for this! You'll..." His words are cut off.
"Time to fly," Tracy calls to Jason. "Up, up and watch your back!"
"We'll have a weenie roast in your honor!" Jason calls after the departing demon. He salutes the closing gateway ... and resists doing a victory jig. "Right, right, we'll go up in the boat. Everyone, time to go sailing!"
Inari blows imaginary smoke off the tip of her assault rifle.
"Rowr" Jason comments as he passes by Inari on the way to the ship.
Jack Fisher finishes hauling Yappy into the 'Half Past Time To Go' and takes it toward the center airshaft. "All aboard who's coming," he calls. The vampire and sorceress seem happy to leave them to their voyage, however, as they regroup.
"Follow that Cadena!" Tracer calls, and sends Fuseli after Irielle and Cadena.
Inari lopes after Jason - taking a ride in a boat seems like it beats clinging to an armored suit with boot jets, especially when she's flammable.
Irielle slows down. "Well! Your friends seem to have done a nice job on Demeritorious," she tells Cadena. "By the way, that was a sterling speech you gave that imp. Gave me goosebumps!"
Inari smacks the kitsune-armored Jason on the heiny.
Jason heys! "And that was for?" he asks Inari.
"Rowr," she responds.
"Hey, can you blame me?" Jason retorts.
In a minute, Brother Cadena, Jason and Inari, and Yappy are riding comfortably with Jack Fisher... Though Fisher gives Jason a hard look and tilts his head toward the obviously ransacked cupboards. Fuseli flies to one side with Tracy, and Irielle floats along on the other side. The Half Past Time To Go glides upward silently, its brightly painted hull reflecting the neon advertisements.
"You would have done the same," Jason points out to Jack and shrugs his armored shoulders. "Or worse .. you were looking through a woman's private things. Actually, worse .. Tracy's private things. That's nightmare material."
Tracer keeps her eyes peeled for any surprises. "Who started the rumor that the Map was here, anyway?" she asks Irielle.
"It wasn't that bad," Fisher says. "But, let me fill you in. Brother Cadena had asked about a certain Renard, and I'd started inquiries, when what should happen but we get contacted by Monsieur Renard, offering to sell us information?"
Brother Cadena breathes more easily - ever so slightly, that is - while he's on the relatively more "stable" ground of the boat - but he goes on the alert again at mention of the fox.
"That is, he claimed to know the location of the Map. I authorized a retainer fee, majority to be paid if we successfully recovered it." Fisher glances downward. "It appears that Monsieur Renard is backing more than one horse in this race, however. I have no doubt that he stands to profit admirably, whichever side succeeds in claiming it."
"Would someone fill me in on what this 'Map' thing is?" Jason requests.
Brother Cadena blanches at this, noting to Jason and Tracer. "At the risk of repetition, it was this 'Monsieur' Renard who openly claimed to be serving the Black - and that I was in service to the White. Not the Shadow or the Light, but the Black and the White."
"That still doesn't tell me what this Map thing is," Jason notes.
"It's a map," Tracer helpfully says. "A map of the Gloaming, with the locations of the portals and all of the different worlds."
"Oh, how thrilling," Jason remarks a bit dryly. "Unless it pertains to what is going on outside of this game world, it is of secondary concern."
"It should also have those portals listed too," Tracer comments.
"And you base this conclusion on what evidence?" Jason asks.
"If an agent of the Black wishes to find it," Brother Cadena says, "I'll guess that it has relevance to the location and formation of synecdoches."
Irielle adds, "Not only that, rumor has it that you can use the map to make portals if you want, to go wherever you want. They say that it was left in the game long ago by developers, and they've been trying to find it ever since, so they can get rid of it."
Fisher continues, "That's the rumor that led me to investigate your apartment, Treasa. Well, that one and the others nearby. The whole area looked just too much like the one in the news to be coincidence."
"Give me access to a quantum terminal and I'll find it in under an hour," Jason comments as he looks over the edge of the ship. "If ti can do what you say, then it will have links feeding back to it from basically everywhere. It should be locateable based on all those data feeds."
Yappy brightens. "Did they get my good side?" Jack gives him a startled look. "Well, now that you mention it..."
The air shaft is long and the boat doesn't seem to move that quickly, but they seem about halfway to the top.
Tracer notes, "It may or may not exist, and this could all just be to provide cover for something else. And yeah, Potemkin allows for convergence points between here and the real world. And it may be doing it by itself, after seeing my apartment."
In the distance can be heard the reports of guns, the thunder of explosions, as if a storm were raging outside.
"My kingdom for a model seven jet turbine with inline fuel heater," Jason mutters in dismay at the slow ascent.
Brother Cadena says, "Ah ... I doubt this is immediately relevant, but before we reach the top, did any of you recognize that sorceress from down below? I'm curious as to her name, for future reference. On the ever-so-slight chance she's who I think she is, I may have to deliver a message to her later."
"I have no idea who it was. Who do you think it was?" Jason asks.
"I wasn't really paying attention," Tracer admits. "I was watching Demetorious."
Irielle looks thoughtful. "She's League, I've seen her around! I think she and the vampire are a husband-and-wife team. Must be nice..."
Brother Cadena nods to Irielle. "Are they musically talented, by any chance?"
Yappy leans toward Tracy. "The base where they took me must be around here somewhere. I don't remember any 'map' kinda thingy though," he says quietly.
"I'm not sure! I can look her up and ask her for you," the angel says, smiling.
Jason starts fiddling with some of the circuits in his left gauntlet for lack of anything to contribute regarding Gloaming or the people that play it. Impedance is a bit off," he mutters to himself, "Makes the output less than it should be."
"Well, the portal to the California base was around here, but they may have another one within the Gloaming. Close to the portals they were opening," Tracer notes.
Brother Cadena nods. "Thank you, Lady Irielle. It might just be a mistake on my part. I'll have to follow up on the possibility once ... ah ... we haven't more pressing matters to attend to."
Jason also takes the chance to remove his helmet and just breathe regular air for a bit.
Brother Cadena braces himself, ears perked. "We're nearing the top. Chanting, sounds of combat, and distinct screams coming from the west, in the direction of the large central tower's rooftop."
The barque ascends, within a minute of the top. Fisher peers up and then reports, "There's a skylight in the way. Do you want to punch our way through or get out and walk?"
"If we blow through, it'll draw attention," Tracer warns. "No chance of stealth at that point."
"Blowign through would be dramatic, but would draw attention to ourselves. I vote for walking," Jason suggests.
Irielle frowns. "Chanting? That sounds like they're carrying out some kind of ritual. I wonder if it has something to do with the Map?"
"Speaking of stealth, should I seek guidance to find the Map?" Brother Cadena asks. "If my faith is insufficient, I may risk calling attention to it and us in the process. I have a strong suspicion that it may be close to the point of convergence above."
"If it isn't the same location I'll be surprised," Tracer says. "Best check now though."
"As you wish, Lady Champion," Brother Cadena says, bowing. He closes his eyes in prayer.
"You really have him whipped," Jason notes to Tracer.
Fisher says, "Maybe they've found a Place of Power. Though word on the street has it that they weren't supposed to put any in this area. Some kind of deal the indie art students who made this place got with the company." The rogue frowns. "But with so many people around... The game likes to stir things up."
RIU licks Jason's left ear. Since his helmet is off...
Jason acks and bats at his left ear.
"Well, it's clear who holds the upper hand in your partnerships, Jason," Tracer snarks back, after RIU's ear lick.
"May the power of the Light guide us," Brother Cadena prays aloud, "to find the way to the Map that shows the ways within the Gloaming, to the portals between realms. May it guide us softly but quietly, by a route as swift as may be managed by foot, so that those who wish to use the Map for ill purposes shall not be alerted to it in the process."
Once again sparks crackle and frizzle around the tip of the crystal-headed staff. It emanates into a ghostly line that swirls upward, and then toward the west -- where there should be a bridge crossing between the top of the eastern building and the massive central tower.
"Neat effect!" Irielle says, leaning over Cadena's shoulder, her wings beating softly so that air rushes around his robes ticklishly.
"You know, I think Cadena has a friend, Jason remarks quietly to Inari ... while trying to fend of RIU from his ear...
Fisher observes, "Maybe there really is a Map here after all. But if so, why does Monsieur Renard want everyone after it?"
Inari smirks. "They're a match made in heaven," she teases.
"Frankly, this while thing is one of two things," Jason says. "1.) It could be a massive distraction. Or 2.) The more people here, the creater the energy level of the reagion, and the greater the change of merging worlds starting at this location. So it's probably less about the map and more about just gathering everyone..."
"Then what does that make us?" Jason asks Inari after his doom and gloom analysis.
"The notion of causing a Place of Power to manifest makes sense too, if he needs that energy," Tracer says.
The barque stops at the top of the shaft. Unfortunately, at this level, the exits are too small for the boat. "Looks like we get out here and walk," Fisher says. "I'll have to come back for the boat later." He palms the lock open and retrieves the sniper rifle and a snub-nosed pistol.
Fuseli just lands over the railing. "Looks like the central tower is the place to be," Tracer says.
Inari licks Jason's nose. "A case of animal magnetism at work," she says with a wide grin.
RIU beeps jealously!
Brother Cadena frowns, stepping out. He quietly leans toward Jason, and says, "I concede and fear for your point, as this may indeed be an element. But the map, at least, is not imaginary. If this were only a ruse to draw so many to one point, no actual map would be required, I fear. Still, the hunt could achieve two objectives at once."
Jason wipes his nose. "Top floor, lingerie, swimsuits, and demonic invasions," he declares as he disembarks from the ship. To Cadena he nods. "It's one, the other, or both. None of them are particularly pleasing ideas. The longer we speculate, though, the less chance we have at stopping it."
Yappy eyes Tracy thoughtfully after Inari's comment about 'animal magnetism'. He takes a breath and tries to inflate his chest to appear more muscled.
Brother Cadena takes Jason's hint, and hastens to follow the lead of the Light, wherever it leads him. He keeps alert, as ever, for ambushes, traps, errant explosive powers, and the like.
Tracer smirks at Yappy, and nudges Fuseli to follow Cadena. She keeps one hand on the laser, just in case.
Irielle frowns. "This is supposed to be a game. You seem awfully worried," she points out to Jason and Tracy. "If the Map gets found, well, someone will have it, and we'll spend the next few years trading it back and forth. It can't be anything more serious than that, can it?"
"Four years ago, California," is Jason's reply to that.
Fisher slings the sniper rifle over his back and carries his pistol. "So the rumors about them testing some new kind of nuclear reactor at the park?..."
"Well.. we aren't hooked up and running characters here," Tracer notes to the angel. "We walked. Look at me.. I'm a character from the Diadem universe, not the Gloaming."
"Was complete crap," Jason remarks to Fisher. "I'm a survivor of that incident. So is Inari here."
"Contextual shift detected," Brother Cadena says absently. "Please clarify expected behavioral context."
"Oh no, are you going to change again?" Tracer asks Cadena.
"Not without specific instruction," Brother Cadena replies, still going through the motions of following the Light trail.
Irielle looks startled. "You're saying..." She floats along as they emerge into the outside. Outside the sky is mottled - shafts of sunlight pierce through the clouds, as if there were a war of light versus darkness. The beam that had been illuminating the central airshaft moves, leaving the boat in darkness. "There's some kind of link between that other game and this one?"
Fisher grimaces. "This sounds complicated. Let's make it short, what's your objective, destroy the Map, or recover it for the good guys, whomever they may be?"
"And the real world, too," Tracer notes. "Jack figured it out a bit - the area here we just left almost exactly corresponds to a place in the real world, and that's enough to let one punch through from one to the other."
Jason takes a moment to get his helmet to return to its position and then continues along. "No, we're saying there's a link to that game and the real world," he says. "None of us are game characters. Well save you and Fisher. Our goal is to shut down this mess and prevent all these game worlds from fusing with our real one."
"And to get Sasha," Tracer adds. "Or Artemis, as she probably calls herself here.."
After a pause, Brother Cadena repeats his inquiry, in the same detached tone. "Please clarify expected behavioral context...."
"Brother Cadena," Tracer tells Cadena.
Irielle shakes her head to Tracy. "This is the strangest roleplay..." She pauses as Jason speaks. Something about his deadly serious expression reaches her. "You're not role-playing?"
"Context clarified," Brother Cadena says.
Inari whispers into Jason's ear, "By the way, me and rifles? You and heroic speeches like that. Rowr."
"What triggered you to need clarification?" Tracer whispers to Cadena.
"Not one bit," Jason tells Irielle, "I don't play VR games." Inari's comment causes him to blink ... and then, well, he swats her heiny.
"Out of character discussion in presence of roleplayers," Brother Cadena says quietly to Lady Tracer/Tracy.
Tracer runs her hand through her hair, and says, "Anyway, let's get across the bridge without getting shot at.."
Fisher looks up to where the black airship has pulled up to the airship dock at the top of the tower. "All right, so just to be clear, you aren't personally interested in the Map, just as long as it doesn't cause this massive convergence of real and virtual worlds," he says. "Speaking on behalf of the Shadows, if you're willing for us to have it after that's said and done, I'll be happy for our side to lend whatever aid we can."
Brother Cadena shows no sign of interjecting himself into the negotiations.
"I'm fine with that," Tracer says. "The Shadows having it won't affect the Balance that much, since they'll give access to whoever can pay for it, Light or Dark."
Irielle rolls her eyes. "Mercenaries. I was going to log off after a bit of hide-and-seek, but let me just make a call and I'll be with you," she says. She acquires the distant look of the AFK.
"I have no interest in the map so long as it does not endanger the real world," Jason says.
They cross the walkway nervously, then around the side of the central tower to the lift tubes. At the top of the tower, a battle royale is taking place, with strangely robed and garbed persons chanting around a statue in the center of the garden, factions split up at northern and western ends trying to assault them and push them back. The statue itself stares blindly at the proceedings, a bare-skinned man dressed in naught but a lion's pelt loincloth, his arms swept back holding a massive globe of Earth over his head.
To the south, the Black Thorn is docked, its guns controlling the between it and the outdoors cafe, but the airship ticket stand, maintenance garage, and the cafe proper block its view of the ritual.
Monsieur Renard himself... appears to be leading the ceremony. "We almost have control!" he tells the onlookers. "Defend the Map! Repel anyone who tries to stop us! We will win the Map, and we will gain ultimate power over the universe!"
Brother Cadena nods, gesturing with the staff. "As you might suspect, Lady Champion, I am guided toward the statue at the center of this ritual. And that would be 'Monsieur' Reynard, leading the ... festivities."
Overhead a tiny dragonwinged fairy flits, taking note of the newcomers. "To me, League! Gather on the north side, we've got to stop them, but we need to coordinate or we'll never break through!"
"On the bright side - no giant cyborg killing machines," Tracer notes as she takes in the scene. "Cait, is that you? It's Treasa!"
"Well, I know what will help this little ritual," Jason quips. "A bullet. Maybe a few, right into that Renard's head. Ir a C-4 enema. Or a small tactical nuclear missile. Does anyone have some enriched Uranium 235?"
The fairy pauses. "Treasa? No way! Are you in disguise?"
Inari says deadpan, "Let me just check the inside of your head, Jason."
Jack Fisher comments, "That's what I said, too."
"Long story! But I've got Area-of-Effect attacks," Tracer replies. "We might as well head over and see who's arrayed. With Jack's allies to the south, and mine to the north, we may have a chance."
Brother Cadena blinks and bows to the fairy, caught in the middle of introductions as Tracy snaps to business. Lost in the action: "Greetings, Miss Caitlin. This is none other than Lady Tracer of House Trudeau, Champion of the Light, Link and Rider of Fuseli, Nightmare of Shadows."
Cait spins doing a mid-air pirouette. "Oh! Caddie! And you got the Shadows on our side? That's great! Meet you there!" She zooms off.
"I have a lot of difficulty taking any of this with the seriousness it requires," Jason admits to Inari as the group apparently heads north. "We're following a fairy into battle. Seriously? What's next, attack of the cabbage people?"
"Don't be silly, Jason," Tracer claims. "The cabbage people are like, level one.."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-07-10-battle-for-the-map.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 4:30 PM Eastern
At the top of the Potemkin Central tower, a battle royale is taking place, with strangely robed and garbed persons chanting around a statue in the center of the garden, factions split up at northern and western ends trying to assault them and push them back. The statue itself stares blindly at the proceedings, a bare-skinned man dressed in naught but a lion's pelt loincloth, his arms swept back holding a massive globe of Earth over his head. The lines that define the longitudes and latitudes have begun to glow faintly.
"Keep chanting!" a fox-morph yells at the strangely robed persons gathered around the statue. He gestures and a red-glowing symbol appears in the air to the south of the statue. "Activate your shield runes now! Nothing must stop us, the Map is almost in our hands!"
At the western point of the compass, a massive werewolf howls, and a shield rune appears. He is accompanied by three werewolves and a small army of gunmen and armored combatants, facing off against a motley crew of what looks for all the world like the Men in Black are teamed up with a mage and demons of their own. "The Map shall be ours!" he roars. "With its power, we will rule all the dimensions!"
At the northern point, a tall vampire smirks at his angelic opponent as he activates his own shield rune. "Dear Merediel, give up this tiresome opposition to our little effort and join me," he says. "Under me, you could learn so many things."
"I'm sure you could teach me to be as much a pain in the neck as you are, Lord Sebastian," the angel captain responds. "But the Map must fall into no one's hands! The Sun and the Moon must be balanced."
And at the east side, a bored-looking Fae perks up as heroes arrive. The shield rune gleams red behind him, casting a bloody light over his brass armor. Before him are several Fae - a swordsman, an archer, and a mage from the looks of it - and a were-cougar and a giant spider stand before them. "I am Lord Aubertee of the Wild Hunt." he says. "Are you friends or foes?... Please say foes, it would relieve the tedium."
As all four shield runes glow, a dome of red light shimmers into existence, protecting the casters and the statues from outside attack.
Tracer points out the four rune-keepers at the cardinal points. "They're maintaining the shield, but it only lasts for about 2 minutes," she explains. "If we take any of them out, there's a better chance of destabilizing the shield and getting through."
Irielle adds worriedly, "They must believe they can finish the ritual before the shield drops. "But that doesn't look like a normal Place of Power. What are they trying to do?"
"They're trying to activate the Map or something," Tracer guesses. "We don't have time to treat this is a normal battle. If we can stop the activation, we'll maintain the status quo. If they get the Map, then they could just portal out from inside the shield!"
"People, people, if we play by game rules, we're not going to win. Think creatively. Come up with things that the games don't plan for," Jason remarks as he eyes the shield critically. "All energy has a wave pattern, correct? Well, if any of you ever took a class that covered time-domain reflectometry you know that open ended circuits generate an inverse waveform that cancels out the wave on the wire. Now that doesn't directly apply here, but surely that shield has a wave pattern. We find it and we create the inverse form and just collapse the whole damn thing. Screw this magic mumbo jumbo."
The tiny pixie darting about near Tracer adds, "When I got here, people were just choosing up sides, but now it looks like the Army of Darkness's formed a pact with the Wild Hunt, they're either gonna stab each other in the back once they have the map or they're going to share it... Pfft, yeah, right! Everyone else is trying to stop 'em from doing it, but I give you good odds the Fiery Swords want the map for themselves."
Yappy brightens up. "Great! We just need a multiscan and..." He pats his fur down. "Did you bring one?"
"How close do you have to be to the shield to figure out whatever you're trying to do, Jason?" Tracer asks.
"Lady Tracer," Brother Cadena asks, "Monsieur Renard's lack of protection and opposition hints at a certain lack of symmetry to this arrangement. Might there be something special about the southernmost rune?"
Jason taps his helmet. "Modify the sensors," he remarks. "I just need to find the frequency at which they operate."
"It could only mean Renard doesn't have any allies outside of the inner circle," Tracer points out. "Do you think you can deal with him, Cadena?"
"I think he is likely to give me a sound thrashing," Brother Cadena says, "and the only me I can think of who might be able to give him a run for his money would probably cause just as much trouble for you. All the same, perhaps I can distract him, as he might be too tempted to demonstrate his abilities on me." He starts walking.
"Alternatively, just blowing up one of the runes might collapse the shield at a point," Jason points out, "or have it open a short bit so that we could slip in. So we could have a group help slap that fox guy around a bit while I rig an explosive on the rune."
The fancily-dressed Fae lord sweeps his gaze across the heroes gathered opposite him. "Is my question difficult to comprehend? You have either come to join us in defense of the Map, with which no prey will be able to elude the Wild Hunt, or else you stand before us as opponents." He frowns. "Declare yourself now!"
"I hate these guys," Tracy says. "Jason and Cadena, you deal with the Fantastic Mr. Fox while we shut these guys up, okay?" Then she pats Fuseli's side, and says, "Now for our reply. Fuseli: Maze of Horrors!"
The Nightmare rears up in response to Tracy's command!
"Right. I guess it's us against Renard. Inari, you can come with us or help Tracy. RIU, you're with me." Jasond ecides and follows after Cadena. "Don't get yourself killed," he remarks.
Inari responds, "Tracy will be fine. I figure you need a fox to fight a fox." She follows Jason, hefting her rifle.
The Nightmare crashes down to the ground, unleashing a wave of indescribable shadows filled with red eyes! For a moment they draw back...
But Lord Aubertee rallies his forces, yelling, "For the Wild Hunt! Slay them all!" The Fae mage and archer at his side shake their heads, as if dismissing phantasms of their imagination. Only the swordsman appears to have succumbed. "No-- no, not in the face!" he whimpers.
The spider hisses as it slashes at the phantasms, parting the wave of darkness before its claws. The were-cougar crouches, preparing to pounce!
Cait whispers to Tracer, "Fight's on! What do you want us to do, boss?"
"Try to draw them away from the rune, and keep them from noticing everyone heading for the Cafe," Tracer says, and moves Fuseli to get a better line of fire. "Fuseli; Speed of Darkness. We'll need it."
Renard turns about as a familiar face apears. "Why, it's my old friend!" He waves a paw behind him. "Baelfire! Allow me to introduce you to a friend of mine, what was it... White Puppy? Servant of the White? Oh! Brother Cadena." He smiles toothily. "How have you been? I'd feared that you'd forgotten all about poor little me."
The demon turns about and spies the intruders. "Imps! After them!" He flaps his gigantic bat wings and takes to the air.
PAF POOF Two tiny replicas of their demonic master appear in sulphurous clouds next to Brother Cadena.
"Why hello there!" Brother Cadena says politely to the imps, in between coughing from the clouds of sulfur. "Yes, I am Brother Cadena. And you are...?"
"Hurt!" one imp squeaks. "Pain!" the other chimes in. "Which is what we'll be bringing you!"
Suiting their words, the imps spring at the white-furred dog in the robe! He had been expecting their attacks however, and uses his staff expertly to deflect one; the other barely manages to swipe at the hem of his sleeve, doing no damage.
Baelfire flies toward the fox and his newfound friends, looking not at all pleased. "You told me to help hold off those blasted Shadows and their Hellfire Club friends! Now you want me to deal with these pests?"
Lord Aubertee smirks at Lady Tracer, then begins to move forward. "Mercy, to the left, Sorrow, to the right. We'll teach them not to underestimate the Wild Hunt!" He pauses next to the swordsman, then slaps him on the cheek. "Pika! Awaken, we have foes to best!"
Brother Cadena twirls his staff, occupying the frenzied little imps. "Ah, I suppose this means you're not inclined to parlay first? At the very least, if Monsieur Renard is going for the arch-villain trope, a stage-setting monologue could be ever-so-enlightening right about now."
The swordsman blinks, then snaps alert. "At your service, Lord Aubertee! I... I don't know what came over me."
The Fae lord smiles, and then returns to his shield rune. "Deal with our intruders. They have declared themselves foes."
The spider surges orward first, hurtling itself toward Fuseli!
The nightmare easily avoids its strikes however, dancing back and to the side. He snorts with contempt as the Speed of Darkness begins to blur his movements.
Irielle shrieks as the were-cougar launches itself upon her! While not visibly injured, she seems to be giving all her attention to shaking it off herself.
As Yappy turns to Irielle with horror, trying to get a clear shot at the cougar, the Fae mage and archer sweep out to attack Tracy and her friends from both sides!
Mercy unleashes what looks for all the world like a rainbow, sweeping colorful streams of light through the area before her!
Duffy wurfs, "You might need the bennies. :)"
Jack Fisher activates a tiny switch and blurs out of visibility, diving for cover! Irielle, while wrestling with the cougar, catches sight of the attack and successfully times rolling across the tiles so that it strikes the were-cat.
WHAM! It's lights out for kitty. She slumps, leaving Irielle partially trapped by sleeping cat.
Fuseli leaps to intercept the rainbow, using the power of Goth (and armor) to blunt its force and protect Tracer's comrades!
Smiling maliciously, as she arrives at the opposite position from Mercy, Sorrow fits what looks like a fan of arrows to her longbow. The dark fae rapidly fires arrows across the crowd!
Arrows whistle through the air narrowly missing Cait and Yappy! Irielle struggles with the snoozing cougar, then yelps as one of the arrows smacks into the pavement next to her.
Finally Pika, recovered from his attack of the shakes, charges to engage Fuseli! He whirls his blade overhead, which looks as if it were made of ice.
Drawing Regret, Tracer uses it to barely block Pika's sword.
The tiny pixel grins. "You need a distraction, eh?" She darts down at the archer, buzzing around Sorrow's head. "IT'S SHINY HAPPY DISTRACTION TIME!"
"Yappy, bullet-hose that archer to the south!" Tracer calls.
Sorrow yelps, trying to swat the pixie. "Ow! Get away! Ack, what are you doing-- stop that!" Her quiver drops off, unfastened, spilling arrows in all directions.
The brown-furred scrawny werewolf yelps. "On it, Tracy!"
Lord Aubertee narrows his eyes at this and studies Lady Tracer. In the right light, she might look a bit like Tracy...
Bullets sing through the air as the werewolf holds the trigger down! Even distracted as she is, Sorrow manages enough presence of mind to throw herself to the ground and avoid the fusilade.
Inari whispers from right behind Jason, "We've got a big ugly inbound. Who do you want me to take out first?"
The werewolf continues to spray fire toward the archer, fangs bared in a rictus that half-says "I can't believe I'm actually trying to shoot something" and half "Dammit, I'm a terrible shot!"
"Any chance you could put a shot between his eyes? I've seen you take it nice and slow ... with explosive effect," Jason replies in whisper. His right hand shakes and the electrical emitters pop out of his gauntlet. He's going to give one of the imps a shockingly good time! So .. he targets the imp on Cadena's right and lets him have it! "RIU, also join in, we're going to take these jerks down!" he orders.
Irielle struggles out from beneath the cougar. Out of reflex, the angel summons a shield. "Blessed Light, protect my friends!"
Cait draws her rapier. "It's nighty-night time for you, Miss Sorrow!" she yells. The dark fae yelps, rolling around wildly, trying to get back to her feet.
Meanwhile, Jack is... Tracy realizes in the ruckus, she's lost track of where he went.
Inari chuckles. "On it." She crouches in the shadow of the cafe's outside bench, taking aim on Renard.
Elsewhere, werewolves fling themselves with wild abandon into battle against a mix of marines and government agents and mages.
Targeting lasers lock onto the imp at Cadena's right. They pulse once, ionizing a path through the air. Cadena sees it before he hears it, a flash of light, then a crack of electrical energy as it slams into the imp, causing its skin to bubble and hiss as the imp howls in agony! No sooner as one flash faded, then another, brighter, one follows in its wake! Kerblam! And down goes that particular annoyance. "Oh yeah, team dragon wins again," Jason croons and high-fives RIU as he perches on his shoulder. Well, it's sort of a high five, anyway. If it was too hard the poor dragon would be knocked off!
As Fuseli starts shaking off the effects of the rainbow, Tracer keeps up her dueling with Pika using Regret.
The saber comes down hard, shattering the ice blade of the elf and chopping into his shoulder.
The fae gasps. "No, I-- retreat! I've failed you, Lord A--" The last of his words are cut off as he disappears from sight, swallowed up by a momentary portal.
Lord Aubertee frowns. "Tracy... Why does that ring a bell?" Then his eyes widen. "Ah! You are the one so highly desired by our Mistress of the Hunt."
Brother Cadena has a hard time finding an opening in the imp's flurry of attacks, and hasn't any time for banter in the middle of it. He makes a desperate thrust, leaving himself exposed for counterattack, but fails to connect solidly enough to have any noticeable effect upon the little imp, as his staff, ultimately, is just a big stick, and has no "special effects" to enhance its damage-dealing properties.
"Mercy! Sorrow! Focus your attack on the rider," Lord Aubertee yells. Then with a smirk growing on his face, he says to Tracy as he traces runes onto the air, "Did you think you could play with the mind of Fae and remain unscathed? You shall learn differently. Dream Prison!"
"What minds?" Tracer replies to the elf lord, but her cheeks pinken a bit at being recognized.
Wisps of green dance up from the stone tiles around Tracy, sprouting curling tendrils that try to entwine around Fuseli's legs and her!
Still recovering, Fuseli staggers when Tracy leans over hard, moving them both into the protection of Irielle's shield.. and just out of reach of the tendrils.
The dark fae archer manages to roll back onto her feet, despite having to evade Cait's tiny little stabbing blade! Rather than pick up her arrows, she switches to her dagger and tries to deal with the immediate threat first.
Unfortunately for Sorrow, the pressure of having to dodge bullets leaves her whiffing at empty air. Cait laughs. "That all you got?"
Mercy frowns at the shield. "Hiding behind a wall, mortal? Well, we'll see about that!" She raises her staff-- no mage should be without one!-- and then calls out, "Lightning, destroy my enemies!"
The sky is partially obscured by clouds. The clouds grow suddenly thicker, as a giant lightning bolt cracks down... And shatters the protective sphere! Irielle cries out in pain as her spell perishes.
Baelfire touches down between Brother Cadena and Renard, his giant bat wings beating to soften his landing and send a breeze of uncomfortably hot air their way. "So, you're a 'friend' of Renard, are you?" he says to the comparatively smaller dog. "You look a bit shrimpy! I was hoping for a real fight."
Renard laughs. "Now now, haven't you heard the story of David and Goliath, Baelfire? Besides, he's got friends - I wouldn't take the gentleman behind him too lightly if I were you!"
Baelfire smirks. "Nothing to say? Let me show you how I got my name... BAELFIRE!" He holds his clawed hands together, forming not one, not two, but three dangerous-looking fireballs, then unleashes them toward Cadena, Jason, and RIU!
RIU narrowly dodges a fireball! The other fireball slams right into Jason's golden fox armor... And leaves nothing except temperature warning sensors going off on his HUD.
"
And the last fireball hits Cadena, scorching the cloth off of his chest... Revealing something he hadn't noticed before: a blue-and-gold suit of armor, made of overlapping scales. In a different milieu, it might look like an Avatar LLC security guard's armored suit.
The robed-and-armored canine is bowled back into the patio furniture of the rooftop cafe, sending wickerwork flying, as smoke rises from his chest.
To the north, Merediel calls for a charge against the vampires and demons holding the line against her! "We must destroy the Map!" she yells.
"You know. ... I'm not terribly impressed by your great balls of fire. I guess what they say is true, size doesn't matter," Jason claims as he nonchalantly 'brushes' off his armor while the alarms warnings are flashing all over the inside of his helmet., " A few too many girls in hell been visiting you? Well, that's what happens when you love with no glove. I hear if they're burning that bad I hear there are lotions they provide for that. Tsk tsk."
Baelfire looks enraged. "What mockery is this? YOU TRIFLE WITH A LORD OF DARKNESS!"
The other imp, Hurt, gnaws on Cadena's booted foot. It doesn't hurt.
As Fuseli shakes off the last of the spell effects with a snort, Tracer says, "They're ganging up on us, so let's give them more of what they want: Cloak of Phantoms."
"Lord of Darkness? In what universe? More like Jester of Darkness? Baffoon of the Black Hearts. Demon of the Dorks ..." Jason rattles off, "Pansies of penance."
If Jason's aim was to enrage Baelfire, it seems to be working.
Immediately, duplicate Tracer and Fuseli images appear around her, each moving off in a different direction!
Both copies of Tracer takes a potshot at Aubertee with laser cannons as well.
Rounds of laser fire stab across the lawn! With the decoys shooting as well, the gaudily dressed fae lord tries to dodge to evade one set... And gets nailed by another. The other shots impinge against the shield behind him, and are soaked up without a sound.
Lord Aubertee gasps with pain, reaching up with one hand to clutch his scorched side. "You'll... pay for that!"
"Must be fun having to stand out in the open for the duration," Tracy taunts back, and hopes Jack is stalking the other mage for her.
"Besides, with the bounty on me you can afford better armor," the goth knight adds. "Assuming you can bring me to Artemis unharmed to collect it!"
"You'll answer for your mockery, never fear," Lord Aubertee retorts. With his free hand, he seems to be rummaging in his belt pouch for something. Perhaps a healing potion.
"I've been through several Universes. I've given deities the finger. I've killed their champions. Do you really think all your laugher, smoke, and bluster impresses me at all?" Jason asks the demon as both gauntlet assemblies snap open and whine as they charge, "Let me tell you of one universal constant. Opposites attract." His hands come up and the target lasers sync on the demon. "RIU, lets send this jerk back to the devil's loincloth..."
Their combined electrical strikes crash together on the demon, causing him to reel back in pain! "ARRRGH!" he howls, writhing.
Brother Cadena sits up from where he's sprawled in the midst of the patio furniture, and frowns disapprovingly down at the imp chewing on his boot. "That's a very bad place to be, you know. You could get hurt." He reaches down and grabs the imp with one hand, propping himself up with the staff in the other as he struggles back up to his feet. "I regret that this is a less-than-dignified way to part ways, but I really must be seeing your master." With that, he stuffs the struggling imp without further ado into the trash bin. Fwup-fwup-fwup. Swatting the flames licking at the chest of his robes, he straightens himself and strides in the direction of Renard ... well, generally-speaking, since there is currently a large (and slightly electrocuted) demon blocking his immediate path.
The golden vixen, crouched at the edge of the patio, coolly holds her fire until she has a clear shot... Then lets off a tight round of three bullets, aimed for the demon's head. POW! Reeling back, Baelfire yells, "Impossible! I cannot be..." He stumbles backward into an escape portal, disappearing from sight.
"And lo, forevermore they called him 'The Neck', because he lost his head over a woman," Jason quips. Bow is he grinning inside his helmet ... and feeling rather proud of his former enemy-turned-friend.
Brother Cadena strolls through the space previously occupied by the demon, frowning disapprovingly at Monsieur Renard as he approaches.
Renard raises an eyebrow. "Well! Now it's just you and me, and your friends of course" he tells Brother Cadena as he draws his rapier. "By the way, did you ever decide which master you were serving?" He glances over at Lady Tracer pointedly.
Inari's voice is quiet. "Scratch one," she tells Jason.
"Well, that's one way of dealing with burning balls," Jason counters quietly.
The Fae lord struggles to his feet. A glint comes to his eyes as he draws forth a vial of some reddish substance.
Cait and Sorrow, engaged with one another, continue to whiff air-- of course if any of Sorrow's dagger strikes hit, it's hard to see how the tiny pixie wouldn't be gravely wounded.
"Seeing as Lady Tracer has accepted her role as the Champion of Light," Brother Cadena says to Renard, "I see no further conflict in that matter. I regret that implies that we, however, are rather at odds. Just what do you hope to achieve by aiding the BLACK in bringing chaos and senseless death to Earth?"
Yappy hoses more bullets down the circumference of the tower -- and manages to tag Sorrow, despite her wild gyrations!
The dark Fae screams as bullets rip across her left leg. "Wretched puppy!" She triggers her escape portal, despite Lord Aubertee's highly disapproving look her way.
poit! The portal disappears from the air.
"Good work, Yappy!" Tracer calls out.
"I think you owe him a big doggy kiss!" Jason shouts.
And just as Mercy is winding up for another attack... A shadowy man appears behind her. "Let's not have any more of that," he says quietly.
"At least he didn't suggest throwing him a bone," Tracer mutters.
A tiny glimmer of metal appears in Mercy's chest as she looks down at the sword which has pierced through... And then Jack Fisher steps back, whipping his sword back. Blood forms a neat red line across the pavement. The mage crumples.
The spider, hissing, peers about at the duplicate images of Tracy and Fuseli... Then singles one out and leaps to attack Tracy on her horse!
Normally, Tracer would scream at having a giant hairy spider on her face.. but that would involve opening her mouth, and right now everything she can close is staying closed!
"Remind me to get a giant spider pillow when we get back, I can use it to shut Tracy up," Jason remarks to those around him.
Its ichorous fangs scrabble against her armor as it tries to bite into her flesh! For now, her armor seems to be holding it off, and a moment later, it drops back down, crouching and preparing to attack again.
Renard smiles. "I'm glad you asked me that! You see, chaos and senseless destruction is not what we here at Team Black are trying to achieve. Rather, we believe in healthy competition, testing our skills against each other, bettering ourselves through experience that can only come through doing, not learning. The White would coddle everyone. No one would ever have to work for anything!"
But it appears he doesn't just want to talk Cadena into joining his side, as his speech is accompanied by a dazzling flourish of his rapier... And a lunge!
The chanting rises in intensity from the shield. The lines that define the globe of Earth on Atlas's shoulders are definitely glowing now.
Cadena moves too slow to stop the rapier with his staff, as the blade slices across his cheek, rather than through his neck. Blood stains his white fur, and the blue chain marks on his face writhe. "True, the WHITE in its original form would do that, if left unchecked. But the Spark I serve has seen the error of trying to turn Earth into a paradise. We are not simple-minded perfectionists. On the other hand, unchecked destruction will not strengthen. It will only, of course, destroy."
Battle continues to rage wildly from the west and north sides. It appears that Merediel's forces are pressing hard against Lord Sebastian, forcing them back across the lawn. The battle of the werewolves versus the Shadows and Hellfire Club is harder to judge, as both sides are now enmeshed in a titanic melee.
Renard draws his rapier back. "Such wisdom! Let's see if you can prove the strength of your position, then," he asys, baring his fangs in a grin. "Don't take too long."
Inari eyes Renard-- but Cadena's in the way of a shot. She glances over to Jason.
The pixie, Cait, darts across to annoy Lord Aubertee!
"I swear, why is it every evil side that when they fight has to look like a mosh pit?" Jason remarks a bit dryly as he heads towards the shield rune. "Inari, help Tracy with her admirer, then come help Cadena. I've got to break the shield..." He starts fiddling with his suit sensors as well as linking up to RIU to use the dragon's built-in sensors too!
Inari nods. "Copy that," she says tersely.
The golden vixen turns and unleashes another tight 3-round burst, shattering the vial that the gaudily dressed fey lord held! The other bullets smack into the armor of his gauntlet, causing him to gasp in pain.
Yappy peers down at the ground, then looks around for Tracy. "Hey! Tracy! I got that one pretty good, didn't I? Er..." He notices, for the first time, the multiple mirror images of Tracy. "Which one are you?"
Gritting her teeth, Tracer forces herself to ignore the spider rather than try to stamp into it a stain - and has Fuseli charge at Aubertee instead, intent on stamping him into a stain..
The spider, reluctant to let Tracy go-- they'd almost shared a first kiss!-- pounces after her! But just at that moment, the Cloak of Phantoms generates another mirror image, splitting apart from her to confuse onlookers on which way she's going... And the spider smacks right through the illusion.
Without stopping, the Nightmare slams into the elf and tramples right over him.
Lord Aubertee cries out as the massive horse crushes several ribs. He was trying to pull a horn from his belt pouch-- that goes skittering across the grass now, bouncing and catching the light with its gold inlaid rim and mouthpiece. He aborts his action to a quick gesture, disappearing into an escape portal.
His shield rune flares... Then disappears.
The shield flickers, but seems to hold steady.
Irielle glides toward the fight with Cadena and Renard. It looks to her as if someone's going to need healing soon!
The shield flickers fitfully. Renard glances aside to where Lord Aubertee was. "Ah, dear me-- but he always seemed a bit of a weak link to me."
"I'd love to discuss the merits of our respective causes," Brother Cadena says, stepping to one side and taking his staff in both hands, "but time is a factor."
The robed canine lunges forward with the staff in a rush, but the sly fox is far too fast for him, easily darting out of the way.
"Yappy," Tracy calls. "Get that horn, it might come in handy."
The fox smirks. "You're so predictable! You always charge head on. You should learn to look at things from..." He teleports to behind Cadena. "A different angle!"
"You do realize you just asked a weerwolf to be horny, right?"" Jason calls out.
Yappy wags. "On it, Tracy!"
"Don't make me ask Inari to discipline you, Jason!" Tracy retorts.
"Are you sure that won't encourage me?" Jason retorts!
Brother Cadena ducks the attack, spinning his staff over his back. "Here's a free tip, Monsieur Renard," he says, batting the rapier blade away with the headpiece of his staff. "You wait until AFTER you hit your target with your sneak attack to make the witty one-liner."
There's a definite humming noise from the statue now. Energy crackles in the air, growing thick with potential as if a portal were about to be formed.
Renard salutes Cadena. "Touche! Let's see if you can guess which trick I'll pull out of my bag next then."
Tracy takes Fuseli down towards the Cafe and Irielle, and takes aim at the enemy fox before firing off a laser burst.
High-energy laser fire rips through Renard. The fox crumples to the ground, smouldering, burning in agony...
Or is he? He creaks an eye open and whispers, "Takes more than that to stop me!" He stands unsteadily, then snaps a finger. (PAF!) (POOF!) (ZOIT!)
Three Renards appear, all looking exactly like the first one!
The first Renard gasps. "It's up to you guys! Carry on the good fight for me!" He expires theatrically.
Brother Cadena frowns. "I don't believe these are phantoms."
The Renards look around. "You, go for the wanna-be fox," one says. "You, take the girl on the horse. And I'll introduce myself to our old friend here! Hello, I'm Renard, and you're about to be sorry!"
"Irielle," Tracy calls, "hug the wall!"
Irielle gasps, moved with apparent pity by Renard's demise, but then her look changes to one of shock as the new Renards appear. "That's..." She looks at Tracy. "That's not possible!" She moves to stand by Jason, preparing herself to cast a new spell.
Yappy dashes for the horn! The spider that was near him shimmers and fades away; perhaps it was the pet of the Fae lord.
Inari grimaces as her line of fire finally clears... Only to reveal a multiplicity of targets. "Did he just cast a mirror image?" she whispers insistently over the headset to Jason.
"Duplicated himself, looks like. Cadena seems to think they're real. I've got an idea..." Jason says over the headset.
The golden vixen sighs. "Understood, holding fire." She squints through the sight of her assault rifle.
"No need to hold fire!" Jason says into the headset. "I've just got an idea depending on if they go down easy or not!"
"Easy picking," the vixen returns.
Inari fires straight down the middle, but the bullets do little more than graze the middle Renard. "Ow!" he cries out, switching his attention from Jason to her. "You little minx! Come here and try that!"
Brother Cadena smacks Renard on the backside with the tip of the staff. "I can see you still breathing. Your acting is lousy."
"Ow!" Cadena's attack draws a grunt of pain from the supposedly dead Renard. The nearby Renard tells him, "Dude, you just gave yourself away!"
The original Renard snaps his fingers... And is suddenly on the inside of the shield. "Did I? Terribly forgetful of me. Sorry about that! Carry on, my friends."
Renard 3 flourishes his rapier at Cadena. "En garde! Hitting a helpless man, or fox, how's that going to look in the daily newspaper, eh?"
Cadena, already extended with his attack against the shamming Renard, leaves himself open to a pinprick from the third Renard clone! Fortunately it doesn't do more than scratch the paint on his armor.
The first Renard clone considers Tracy and Fuseli, then hops up into the tree and leaps from its branch at her, screaming a battle cry of "FOR THE BLACK!"
Having been busy with her laser gatling, Tracy is unprepared for the leap of vulpine fury that tackles her off of Fuseli. The nightmare whinnies and rears up, but they roll about engaged in hand-to-hand combat, making it too difficult for him to be able to strike without hitting Tracy.
The second Renard lunges toward Inari, causing her to backpedal! "You're beautiful, miss," he says, sweeping a bow. "Allow me to present you with..." He sweeps off his floppy wide-brimmed hat, then whips out an armful of flowers, which he tosses up so that the petals land around her, on her.
Inari, stunned, doesn't manage to get out of the way before they touch. "I-- er--" she stammers.
"Oh hell no," Jason says as he forgets rewiring the grenade for now and goes after the fox who just threw flowers! "RIU, shock his tail into the next century!" he orders as he charges up his own systems and lets loose on Renard!
"No one touches her," Jason growls through his armor as his bolt ignites as his hand slams into the back of Renard, sending a massive surge of electrical energy through his body and literally lifting the fox off his feet in a blue fireball! A second surge of electrical energy shrieks in and slams into that ball, sending it reeling across the 'park'. It hits the ground and disperses and a very charred looking body goes flopping along the ground like a rag doll and leaving a horrid stink in his wake.
*** To be continued! ***
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-07-24-battle-for-the-map-part2.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 4:45 PM Eastern
At the top of the Potemkin Central tower, a battle royale is taking place, with strangely robed and garbed persons chanting around a statue in the center of the garden, factions split up at northern and western ends trying to assault them and push them back. The statue itself stares blindly at the proceedings, a bare-skinned man dressed in naught but a lion's pelt loincloth, his arms swept back holding a massive globe of Earth over his head. The lines that define the longitudes and latitudes are glowing brightly.
With the elimination of the Fae on the east and their shield rune, the glowing sphere protecting the chanters in the middle of the globe has begun to flicker. To the north and west, battle rages between rival factions as they attempt to press the other Map ceremony defenders back against the shield, where hopefully if the shield disruption favors them, they'll be in range to lunge inward and assault the chanters directly.
Yappy secures what looks like a horn, rimmed in brass and made from the curling horn of some giant deer-like creature. The scrawny brown-furred werewolf looks over at Tracy, then yelps as he sees her assaulted by a fox creature. He begins loping toward her, with Cait Sindarel overhead.
Renard himself is all but dead, an apparently charcoal-crisped fox morph collapsed on the inside of the shield. His shield rune is defended by two surviving duplicates-- the third was destroyed by a vengeful Jason after it attempted to charm Inari.
The first surviving duplicate menaces Cadena, after his staff-strike succeeded in revealing Renard's ruse. "Think you're so clever, do you?" he taunts. "Cadena... I am your father!"
The second has successfully tackled Tracer off of her Nightmare, Fuseli, leaving them engaged in melee combat as she is forced to let go of the laser gatling and draw her sabre to parry its blows. As Jason yells No one touches her, it boasts, "Touching her? I'm all over her!" perhaps choosing to believe Jason meant Tracy, not Inari. It attempts a complicated series of strikes and feints, which she barely evades.
Atlas's globe shines brightly along its meridians. Irielle calls to Jason, "The ceremony! We have to interrupt it soon, it feels as if it's about to complete!"
"Get off of me!" Tracy yells at the fox that's 'all over her' at the moment. To everyone else, she warns, "Big portal forming, might be reinforcements for anyone but us!"
"Oh I know you can look after yourself, but he was flirting," Jason says rather hurriedly to Inari, "With magic! It might have worked!" He's about to say more but Irielle cry grabs his attention. "Bah! I have to go breach the shield wall! You can threaten to kill me later!" he asides to Inari then dashes back towards the shield so he can complete his grenade fiddling!
Inari shakes herself back to alertness. The golden vixen, dressed in a black jumpsuit, lifts her assault rifle. "Flowers aren't my thing," she calls to the remaining Renards, then teases Jason. "Little faith in me?"
"Father?" Brother Cadena sighs to Renard Duplicate #1, "If that's so, you're so very far behind on Mother's alimony payments."
"Little faith in myself to keep anything good!" Jason replies, en-route to Irielle and the shield.
"Plus, this just means I was able to deflower you!" Jason adds after some thought ... and really glad he has some distance between himself and girl with a big gun.
"Rrrr!" Inari looks as if she's having thoughts about putting a bullet through the space between Jason's eartips.
Cait yells, "Get your grubby hands off my girl!" The dragonwinged pixie zooms straight for Renard #2, buzzing around him!
Unfortunately, it appears that her tiny rapier is unsuited for doing more than tickle the fox, judging from his laughs and giggling.
Yappy calls insistently, "Tracy! What do I do with this?" He holds the horn up, approaching them more cautiously than the impetuous fairy.
Inari decides against giving Jason a warning shot for that bad pun. Instead, she moves up closer to the shield and Jason, slinging her rifle back over one shoulder. She draws her laser sword which hums ominously, blade a sinister red.
"I think if you blow it, the Wild Hunt arrives!" Tracy calls out. "They may already be coming though; something is opening a big portal!"
Brother Cadena spins his staff, and makes for as if to swing, but then he drives low, sweeping Renard #1's feet. The ethereal chains have no effect, but the headpiece is solid enough.
"Whoa!" The Renard duplicate topples onto his tail. "Good comeback, by the way." He throws Cadena a mocking salute, before rolling back onto his feet and slashing at the robed dog.
"I don't quite know what's gotten into me," Brother Cadena says, looking momentarily confused, even though he easily and almost absently evades the slash.
Jason darts towards the shieldstone, having to hop-rebound off a chair in the process. He comes skidding to a halt near it and promptly whips out the grenade, a few small picks, and a dragon! "Few things in life cannot be solved by the application of the right type of explosives," he quips. "A shocking statement coming from me, but soon everyone will see the light. A pure flash of brilliance!"
"You don't? A piece of the White, that's what got into you," Renard #1 claims. "Have you noticed a tendency to go to pieces when things get confusing? The White isn't good at adapting to chaotic situations... Not like the Black!"
Renard #2, meanwhile, tries to score another hit on Tracy, but even shaken as she is, she manages to evade his attacks.
"Adapting to chaos and simply being chaotic are two entirely different things, Monsieur Renard," Brother Cadena responds.
Tracy gets angry enough to throw out strategy and just snack the guard of her saber against her assailant's head! "Go fox yourself!" she yells at the Renard clone.
Renard #2 ouches, rubbing his head! "Now, that's not very ladylike of you at all... 'Lady Tracer'!"
Something seems odd about the skies of the New Metropolis, as if a massive heat wave were causing the air to shimmer and blurring the skyline. Airships floating in the distance seem to waver in and out of visibility.
The shield crackles... And drops for a few seconds.
"Push inward!" yells one of the attackers. The defenders, shield no longer at their back, fan outward to try to intercept them.
"You know, Renard Number One, it's been entertaining," Brother Cadena says, as he shifts his stance again - but then he spins and makes a lunge for the gap in the shield, hooking his staff under the previously "unconscious" fox, "but I think I'd prefer to deal with the original."
The original Renard, still comically charcoal-blackened, widens his eyes as he sees Brother Cadena approaching. "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, we can talk about this!" he stammers quickly.
The high priest continues to chant, gesturing with his hands to his acolytes as they pause. "Access code epsilon, triskelion megalith obsidian, debug point three one four one five..."
Noticing the shield is down for the moment, Tracy calls out, "Fuseli, blast the High Priest!" The Nightmare has to move away from her to get around the tree - and avoid catching friendlies in the line of fire..
Original Renard struggles in Cadena's grip, held fast by the staff under his chin and across his body. "It's not too late to join the Black!" he gabbles. "The pay is great and you can do what you like! No dress code!"
"Monsieur Renard," Brother Cadena says, his body trembling. "You have NO idea what you're talking about. You do not want me to be Black. I promise you."
Fuseli stops near a boulder, practically on top of a chanter who just happens to be in the line of fire. With a horrible whinny, the Nightmare rears up and then strikes the ground, causing a fan of cracks to spread out towards the High Priest to the south of the statue - and then the crack burst upwards with magical flame!
The closer chanter screams in pain as the ground opens up beneath him, covering him with hellish flames! The High Priest breaks off his chant to throw himself out of the path of the blast. "Two six-- argh!"
Seeing the high-priest suddenly jump right next to him, Jason gets a disturbingly evil grin under his helmet! "SSay, I think you want a ride on fox airlines. The trip is a blast, but the landing is a bitch," he quips as he tries to grab onto the priest!
Still dealing with Renard #2, Tracy struggles and makes another strike with her saber - hitting with the blade this time, but not having much force behind it. "C'mon, ride's over already!" she complains to the fox.
RIU eeps as Fuseli's attack passes uncomfortably close to him! It washes against the side of the airship maintenance storage building, cracking the walls.
The second Renard duplicate laughs. "Life's a never-ending rollercoaster ride of highs and lows... Until you run smack into death!"
"What-- unhand me at once, you miscreant!" yells the high priest as the man in the golden fox armor grabs him. "Do you not see how important it is to us all that the Map be unlocked?!"
"Ever hear the old saying, caught between a rock and a hard place?" Jason asks the priest as his tone takes on a disturbingly evil note. There's a dull thump as jets power up ... and Jason targets the statue, intending to use the priest as a make-shift air-bag!
Jason has never been known to do things that make a whole lot of sense when he's annoyed and worried ... and rocketing a priest and himself into a large statue is certainly an example of that! The priest makes a horrid wheeze of a sound when all the air is knocked right out of him. Jason's armor turns into a display of screeching and sparking of metal as he slides along the front of the statue just before a final burst kicks his direction vector enough that he lands is rather dramatic, at that! "That was crazy, but it felt oh-so good. Now I just have to go get that globe..." he cackles.
The other chanters hesitate, distracted by the attacks against their high priest. The flow of magical potential halts for a second...
The original Renard, stung by Cadena's rejection of his offer, yells at them, "CONTINUE! I'll deal with them!"
He takes a deep breath, and the other Renards fade out of existence. Instead, the fox grows in size! Charcoal flakes off his fur, leaving it dark black, and his form hunches over as his arms transform into legs with a gruesome crackling. Cadena feels intense heat within his arms as he struggles to keep his staff locked around Renard's neck.
Renard's paws burst into flame! Black metal shackles shimmer into place around them, trailing chains that cause the nearby grass to smoulder.
"RIU, light up that chanter!" Jason orders the dragon through his mental link, along with which one he means by looking at him!
Brother Cadena stops shuddering, as he hangs on. "Oh! So that's where you are! You have absolutely no idea how much of a relief this is. Oh, wait, maybe you do."
RIU aims a laser-straight bolt of lightning straight for the chanter! He crumples to the grass, smoke billowing from his robes. Even with Black Renard having made an appearance, the other chanters look decidedly nervous. "Access code... Access..."
"ZETA!" roars Renard, sending a gout of flame his way. The acolyte squeals and starts gabbling syllables.
Cait looks disappointed that her Renard has gone away... Until she sees the huge black four-legged fox-like monster. "Oh hey! A new playmate!"
"Inari! Go for the other chanters while over-compensation-fox is busy!" Jason calls out to his golden friend.
Yappy shivers. "Reinforcements... Um! I guess we could use some reinforcements!" He lifts the horn, evidently a bit uncomfortable about the idea of touching his lips to a mouthpiece that someone else might have gotten his saliva on.
"Never mind the big fox, stop the chanters," Tracy calls out, as she gets back to her feet.
"Hold off on the horn, Yappy!" Tracy says when she notices the werewolf again. "We don't need more chaos yet. Try to take out one of those ritual guys!"
Inari dashes toward the fray, laser sword at the ready. "Count them good as gone," she says confidently.
The golden vixen lunges toward the far acolyte, forcing him to dodge-- but at least it distracts him from his rapidfire chant of syllables.
"Jason!" Tracy calls out next. "The portal is still building.. I think it's the portal! This whole area may be shifting into the real world soon!"
The pixie zooms over Black Renard's head, avoiding his reflexive swipe narrowly, beelining for another cultist! Yappy sets the horn down disappointedly, and breaks out his assault rifle instead.
"Cadejo!" Brother Cadena cries out, "I was wondering when you were going to show up. Forget these cultists! I have the key now. Together, we can awaken Lady Manjari. She's still alive!"
"Working as fast as I can here!" Jason calls back. "Contrary to how it seems, I can't work miracles every second!"
After calling out her warnings, Tracy hurries to rejoin Fuseli.
"What foolishness is this? Of course she is still alive," Black Renard retorts, trying to shake Cadena off. "Ah-- release me, and we can waken her from her slumber. It has been too long since she has visited the blessed realms!"
"The fox is full of crap, Cadena!" Jason shouts, "That's why his fur is so dark! Don't listen to him; he has no idea what you're talking about!" Of course Jason is thinking how he doesn't really have any idea either outside of a vague notion.
Once she's back in the saddle, Tracy whispers to Fuseli, "Keep an eye out for Yappy's evil counterpart. There's bound to be one for him too.."
Fuseli snorts, looking up at Tracy sidelong.
Black Renard thrashes under Brother Cadena, shaking him off and sending him flying! He bellows triumphantly and rears up on two legs. "Fool! Those who play with fire will get burned in the end!"
"Wait a minute," Brother Cadena says, suddenly uncertain, even while hugging onto the giant black furry creature's back and being tossed about. "Cadejo, what's wrong with you? Normally, you would have put a snide remark in there or a backhanded compliment that was really an insult if I thought about it, not a lame cliche, an-- WHOA!" While he's pondering this at an inappropriate time, he's sent hurtling headlong.
Jason checks his power cells and frowns. "Not much left, Lets see if this other grenade can boost my reserves," Jason thinks as he gets to work trying to pull the power core from the grenade! "RIU, to me and shoot the next castor!" he orders.
The shield crackles, then reforms faintly, sealing Jason, Inari, Tracy and Fuseli, and Cait in with the remaining three acolytes. Cadena remains outside with Black Renard, along with Irielle and Yappy.
RIU corkscrews himself up around a glowing ball of energy, his wings flaring out wide to focus energy! For a moment it is as if the sun were glowing brightly in the midst of the shield... And then he unleashes the blast, straightening out all at once in the direction of the farther acolyte! ZORCH
The two remaining acolytes, their protector locked outside the shield, look at one another. "We surrender!" one yells. The other one turns to run for the trees, beating against the wall of the shield.
Renard yells angrily at them, "Cowards! Do not falter, there is still hope!"
Inari gives Jason a look, as if to question whether he wants to accept their apparent yield.
"Hope for what, exactly?" Tracy asks. "If you're surrendering, tell us what was going to happen once the map was activated"
"Oh ... no there isn't. Inari, please send the remaining chanters into slumberland. I suppose we don't have to kill them, but we can't risk them starting the chant again," Jason concedes.
Yappy glances toward the shield, then back at the more obviously reachable Black Renard. He levels his assault rifle at him. "I, um. I've got you covered! Hands up!" He frowns in thought. "Your money or your life? Or, no, wait, I've got it. No funny moves!"
Renard turns to snort with contempt at the small werewolf. "Would you accept a serious move then?" He bares his fangs.
The sense of quantum instability in the air hovers, then begins to recede ever so slightly.
From where he's been flung into the tree, Brother Cadena spits out leaves, and laughs, with a pained tinge.
Tracy looks.. down? "Cait, do you feel it?" she asks the fairy. "That big portal is opening on the floor below, I think."
Brother Cadena calls out, "Lord Drachehand, how strong is the rooftop underneath that statue, do you suppose?"
Jason's head tilts. "Oh, now that is interesting!" he mutters as his metal-clad fingers tap on the statue he stands near. "Too hard for us to break with what we have, but there may be another solution!" he declares ... then grows ominously silent. He's up to something.
Inari pounces on her acolyte! She begins wrassling him into submission, using some duct tape to tie his wrists together to his ankles, ensuring that he won't be getting up anytime soon.
"Oooh lookie. That is promising," Jason cackles. He offers the shield-rigged EMP grenade to RIU as he says, "Go give this to Inari. It looks like I have some business to tend to below. Or rather, someone." He heads south.
RIU beeps! and takes the grenade, but looks worried at its master.
"Do you think Tracy is any safer with a grenade?" Jason asks RIU.
The miniature Chinese dragon gives Lady Tracer a sidelong glance, then beelines for Inari!
"Where are you going, Jason?" Tracy calls. "Do we need to smash the globe or not?"
"I need to smash someone's face," Jason answers!
"He could have an Imperial battalion down there you know," Tracy notes, and looks up at the globe. "You, ritual guy that's still functional: what was your master's plan?"
The acolyte, backed against the shield wall, looks up at the threatening pixie in his face, then over at Tracy. "Uh... To awaken the Map! See, it was really concealed in this globe all along, it was just sleeping, and once we awokened it, we'd be able to command it and make it take us wherever we wanted! Like, safely away from here." This last appears to be what he really wants right now.
"Okay," Tracy says, and pats the side of Fuseli's neck. "Let's go up and see if we can kick a whole in the side of the globe. We'll try France first.."
Cait snorts. "And who did you think was going to give the Map its marching orders? You, or that crazy fox back over there?"
Once hovering in place, Fuseli turns and gives the globe a mule-kick!
"Tracy, I need some of your unmodified grenades when you get a chance!" Jason calls out.
WHANG! Fuseli's hoof strikes a glancing blow against the globe, leaving a long score across Paris.
"Now you..." Tracy starts to say, then sighs and fishes out her grenades. "RIU!" she calls for the dragon.
RIU eeps? from where it's dropping an EMP grenade off at Inari's feet.
"Come get these grenades before I just throw them at Jason," Tracy calls to the mini-dragon.
The minidragon heads toward Tracy next!
"Yappy! Ms. Irielle!" Brother Cadena cries out, as he leaps wildly at Black Renard, "ignore this imposter! Go for the shield rune and throw everything you have at it!" He grapples onto the beast's back, and clings on, then leans in, hissing into his ear, "I should have known you were a pretender. My Black Cadejo would never stoop to playing a ... a lute!" He says that last, dripping with disgust.
"But he's in the way!" Yappy protests. He jogs to the side, trying to get line of sight, which unfortunately impairs his accuracy. Irielle doesn't protest; instead, she reaches up to the sky, praying. Her hands begin to glow brightly.
Bullets spray wildly through the air, narrowly missing or ricocheting off of the rock in the way!
The angel concentrates... and then splays her hands outward as if pushing! A beam of holy radiance gushes out toward the rune, causing it to waver and distort, on the verge of dissipating.
Perplexed and hanging on for dear life, Brother Cadena cries out, "At the RUNE, Yappy, not at the MOON!"
Inari gets the cultist tied up and collects the grenade. "For me?" She looks over at Jason askance.
"It'll disrupt the shield! Use it if you need to. I have a certain other Jason to go deal with," Jason calls back and points towards the ground.
"The chanters are down!" yells one of the defenders. "Fall back! Get within the shield, next chance we have, we can still do this!"
"By yourself?" The golden vixen bares her teeth. "I don't think so!"
"Yes! Please keep at it, no matter what happens!" Brother Cadena cries out. "It's weakening! Yappy, you can do it! Aim lower and walk up into the target!"
The shield wavers, pulsing in and out.
"There are armed guards down there! And ... he's sort of my fault as it is!" Jason claims. "I've got to at least disrupt the device he's trying to hook up down there!"
"Whatever you do, don't think like yourself, Jason!" Tracy advises.
Black Renard thrashes, trying to shake Cadena off so he can get back to the shield rune!
Brother Cadena seems to, for a fleeting moment, be channeling some other role in his repertoire as he rocks with the rhythm of the bucking fox, keeping his balance. "Whoa, whoa there! Calm down. Easy now! Don't you want to come with us back to the ranch? How about a nice apple? Now, I wonder what she's going to name you, huh? Blackie? Too obvious. Wildfire, maybe?"
Underneath, in the Dantech server room, Jason Zero finishes tuning the device. "All right, once I switch this on, the dimensional anchor should kick in and we should de-synch again," he says. "Damn the BLACK! With all this prodding, we may have to deal with ATLAS being incompletely programmed and fill in the blanks. Andrei, ready to pull me back once I switch this on?" He pauses, listening to a distant response.
Inari leaves a struggling acolyte behind as she runs up to catch Jason before he can descend down the concealed hatch to the room beneath. "You're not going alone," she insists.
"Whatever happens here, I want all of you to know it's been an honor to have known you," Jason calls out to the others. "Please look after RIU if anything happens to me." Inari's interruption causes Jason to eye her for a moment. "Looks like we're both dealing with the past, then," he concedes to her. I'm going to shut down his device and then deal with the machine. If you can manage the guards..." How, he leaves t her as he descends to destroy the anchoring device!
Renard whines and yips, trying to throw Cadena! "Wait! There's been a terrible mistake! I'm not a mustang! I'm a fox! You aren't supposed to ride foxes, and you especially aren't supposed to give us apples!"
RIU eeps! It scoops the grenades from Tracy's outstretched hands and beelines to its master's side.
With the grenades passed off, Tracy turns Fuseli to face the globe, and pats his neck again. "One more time; point blank! Glimpse of the Abyss!"
"Now, a juicy steak... Some tender rare beef and we could forget all our differences," Renard proposes.
Fuseli cracks the ground! The statue itself begins to tilt as flames leap up, fracturing the stone. Glowing crystals are exposed within the cracks, and sparks fly like miniature fireworks.
Cait ooos. "Pretty!"
The defenders cry out. Lord Sebastian pronounces, "The infidels are destroying the Map! Graymane! We must drop the shield and destroy them!"
"The statue is part of it too?" Tracy says, blinking a bit at the result. "Good job, Fuseli!"
"My, you've got a lot of spirit in you, boy!" Fantasy Ranch(tm) Hand Cadena says with a whistle, as he keeps on Black Renard's back. "Won't you be a fine one for Miss Maggie! Land's sakes, but now for some reason I'm thinking about those pan-fried steaks. I could sure go for that and a tall glass of lemonade once we get back!"
A shadowy rogue appears from behind Tracy and Fuseli. "Destroying the Map isn't part of our agreement," Jack Fisher reminds her, pointedly. As in, with a dagger resting against the back of her armor. "I'll have to ask you to desist."
As the battle rages above, Jason peeks down through the security camera as he's about to undog the hatch leading to the server room. Jason Zero appears about to leave, with the device behind him humming slowly as it builds up power.
"When did you decide to be a hero?" Jason asks himself as the hatch is forced and in he goes! His right gauntlet charged and glowing with Saint Elom's fire. He takes aim at Jason Zero's device ... and opens fire!
"Where have you been?" Tracy asks the Shadows agent. "And I was just trying to free it from its shell.. I didn't think it was going to be this big!"
"What if it is the statue? You may already have caused it irreparable damage," Jack Fisher counters. "You've stopped the ritual. All we need to do is to clean up the rest of the defenders and they won't be able to continue."
"Yeah... except we're on the wrong side of the barrier at the moment," Tracy points out. "But.. we do have their full attention now I bed!"
Jason Zero looks startled as Jason Prime appears, but the portal is already closing behind him. "What-- no!"
The bolt impacts with deadly energy on the 'dimensional anchor'... And things go haywire.
A weird pulse of dimensional instability sweeps the area, just as Lord Sebastian and Graymane power down their runes and the shield falls. Acrid pollution wafts through the air and stings the eyes. In the distance, a flock of armed response Valkyries sweeps toward the rooftop, their engines growling. Some of the combatants waver and fade from existence, then reappear as others blink out.
"That wasn't my fault!" Tracy immediately declares.
In the server room, blue lightning crackles between the dimensional anchor, now thoroughly toasted, and the quantum core right next to it.
Lines crackle around the globe, and then... The statue itself comes to life, red sparks emitting from the fractures in the stone. Its globe wavers and becomes a holographic representation, an image that shrinks and floats up to hover over its palm. "I... AM... ATLAS," it shouts, and glares down at the battle raging on the rooftop. "WHO DISTURBS MY SLUMBER?"
Renard cowers, now genuinely worried.
"Time to shut down that core!" Jason immediately thinks, "Before this gets any worse!"
The Black Thorn releases itself from dock, swearing crewmen running among its riggings and leaning over the edge to cut the lines. It floats upward to gain altitude and turns its guns to bear.
Inari, just above Jason in the access shaft, perks her ears. "I don't like the sound of that," she tells him.
"It was the BLACK," Tracy claims, standing right at Atlas's feet. "He wanted to take your power."
"Intruder!" yells the guard right next to the access hatch though well underneath it. He whirls around and then looks upward.
"Nor do I!" Jason calls back. "I'll need to shut this core down like yesterday! But ... I'll settle for real soon now!"
"THE... BLACK." The Grecian statuesque hero frowns. "THERE ARE INTRUDERS IN MY DOMAIN. THEY MUST ALL DEPART." He holds the globe-image up and concentrates on it.
"Whoa now, easy, Wildfire," Ranch Hand Cadena says, patting the giant fox on the ruff. "Don't you worry none about this here interloper. We'll get this right straightened out, so we don't have to bother none of the rest with this, hear now?" He clears his throat. "Now listen here, sir, on what account are you on Arcadia Ranch? Now, Cadejo done said he patched the fence - after putting up no end of trouble over it, true - but I take him at his word, and you'd have to see the sign if you came 'round the gate."
"I AM ATLAS," the giant responds unperturbed. "IT IS YOU WHO INTRUDES ON MY DOMAIN. LEAVE."
"Wait!" Tracy calls up, her portal sense going off.. but feeling weird. "Please, Mighty Atlas.. where is your domain, exactly?"
Inari whispers to Jason, "Scoot out of my way, I'll drop down and cover your back."
"Scooting!" Jason agrees and tries to move to the side! "I can stop this. I'm sure of it! Positive! Absolutely!" he babbles.
The shield has faded away, along with the shield runes. The defenders, about to rush in, halt at the sight of the animated statue. For the moment the battle seems to have halted.
"Let's all give Atlas some room," Tracy calls to Cait and Yappy, while pointing up towards the maneuvering airship.
It's a good thing Inari isn't built more generously or the slim, jumpsuited fox would have a hard time getting past Jason! She drops down into the server room, amidst sprays of bullet from several different directions.
Cait and Yappy find convenient trees to hide under! The brown-furred werewolf calls to Irielle, "I saved you a spot!"
Ranch Hand Cadena smacks himself on the forehead. "Well, good grief, Wildfire. I do reckon that in all the hoopla, we might well've crossed a fence back there. What say you we ride on and find our way back home afore it gets darker?" He pats Black Renard's shoulder lightly. "Now, I do wonder. If I were looking for the way back home, which way would it be?"
The golden vixen manages to avoid several of the attacks-- but not all of them! Though her jumpsuit is armored, a bullet slams into her back and sends her stumbling against the nearby core access terminal, momentarily dazed.
"RIU! Defend Inari!" Jason orsers the dragon in a panic!
orders...
Cadena's staff glows fitfully. Lines stretch outward from it in all directions... And then strangely, streak outward to Atlas's globe! The statue's eyes snap open as he stares at Cadena. "THIS PLACE CALLED HOME," he commands. "YOU WISH TO RETURN THERE."
ATLAS's eyes seem to bore into Cadena's for a long moment, as if searching his mind.
RIU mreeps and dashes down after Inari!
"I really hope Cadena knows what he's doing," Tracy says, and then searches around. She felt a portal open.. the emergency sort, when a player is too wounded to fight or defend.."
"Right you are!" Ranch Hand Cadena says, reaching up to tip an imaginary hat. "I beg yer pardon for trespassing on your land here. If'n you don't mind, I'll take Wildfire right on back. Hoo-eee! I can smell Miss Maggie's cookin' now. I better hurry on back afore Cadejo eats it all."
"It's Cadena.. Where's he going?" Tracy mutters, then turns Fuseli to head towards the dog (and monster fox).
And with that, a portal opens before Cadena... And Renard, scrabbling at the edge, is nevertheless unable to hold onto the grass sufficiently, falling in after him.
Whoosh!
"Yeeee-hawwwwww!" Ranch Hand Cadena cries out!
"CADENA!" Tracy yells, but it's too late. "Was that a cryosleep vault through the portal?" she asks.. Fuseli, since nobody else is around her.
Jason doesn't even have to think about it. He drops down after RIU darts in. Glad he borrowed some power from the grenade, he raises his hand, the gauntlet crackling with energy! "RIU, number one. I've got two..." he orders, then opens fire!
Seeing Irielle and Yappy at one of the trees, Tracy calls out, "Yappy, stick close. Atlas is gonna do something weird and we don't want to be separated!"
ATLAS resumes focusing on the globe. The helicopters in the distance waver... And then fade out. A fresh-smelling breeze sweeps in, redolent of the special blend of brass that says 'New Metropolis' to Lady Tracer. The gathered vampires, werewolves, demons, angels, and hardened mercenaries slowly gain solidity even as they retreat toward the lift tubes on the side of the Tower.
"He's reversing the convergence effect," Tracy says, at first with relief.. then with alarm. "He's sealing us off in here!" Calling to the statue, she asks, "Atlas! Will you send those of us who don't belong here back to our world too?"
RIU is remarkably accurate with his bolt in addition to being quite deadly. He twists into a blinding ball of light just before a burst of electrical energy arcs out and slams into the first guard. The sound and stench is impressive as he's charred and taken down! Jason's aim is not nearly as good at RIU's. His bolt finds purchace on the second guard, but a chunk of its power arcs off and dissipates into the wall, leaving his target feeling stunned and tingly, but very much alive.
The statue's eyes turn and hold Tracy's. "YOU WISH TO RETURN TO YOUR WORLD. BUT WHAT WORLD DO YOU CLAIM, WOMAN OF THREE?"
Cait peeps from the cover of her tree. Yappy whines, glancing over at the hatch. Right now it seems a bit safer to be underground...
"Earth," Tracy says. "We have to finish stopping the Convergence there. What will you do? The ritual wasn't finished, so.. I'm guessing nobody can control you now?"
The onlookers whisper and chatter among themselves. Tracy is sure to be a local legend before long.
"THOSE SUCH AS I ARE MADE TO BE WHAT THEY ARE. WE SHALL SERVE OUR PURPOSES," ATLAS replies enigmatically. A portal appears behind Tracy, showing the eerily red-lit Quantum Link room and the puzzled Tesliem guards and technicians frantically working at their stations.
Tracy takes a moment to fumble with communication gear, which was knocked loose during her tumble. "Jason? Inari? Can you hear me?" she says. "We have a portal back! Are you ready to leave?"
The second Dantech guard staggers, shaken by the bolt. He holds his head.
Jason puts his arm around Inari's waist. "Come on, sexy, time for us to go or we'll be trapped," he rells her as he tries to get her to the ladder up. "And don't worry, I'll be leaving a present."
The remaining guard gasps as the server room is attacked by not only a jumpsuited fox but an ARMORED fox! He tries to put a spray of bullets through Jason.
Bullets spang off of his golden armor and whiz through the air just over his shoulder. Close, but no cigar for the Dantech guard!
Inari shakes herself alert. "Wha-- ugh! Give me a boost up," she says to Jason.
The other guard blinks woozily, but is still seeing stars.
"This would be more exciting if we weren't in serious danger," Jason quips as he gives her a helping boost up ... by lifting her from her bottom.
The golden vixen kicks Jason with one foot as she gets goosed! Then braces herself on his shoulders and leaps up to the high access panel.
While motioning Yappy to come over, Tracy says into the mic, "Jason? We have access to the final platform, but they've got Chaz hostage up there. Should I invite any of the gamers to head through as a distraction?"
"If you think they'll help, sure," Jason replies.
"Listen up!" Tracy announces. "Anyone who wants to help save the world, line up here!"
Jack Fisher smirks to Tracy. "Our main concern was that the Map will wind up in no one's hands. I think we're safe... But I'm going to keep an eye on things just to be sure." He disappears into invisibility, his toothy grin the last thing to vanish.
ATLAS waves his hand. "THEY ARE NOT OF EARTH. IT WILL HARM THEM TO GO THERE," he cautions Tracy. Hearing this causes several of the adventurers who step forward to look at one another.
Irielle looks hesitant. "Um... Harm how?" She looks askance at Tracy.
"Without regeneration support the bodies will break down," Tracy notes. "It feels like.. burning.." she admits.
"right behind you," Jason calls after the escaping Inari. He gives her a second or two to get a bit up the passage, then uses a short jet burst to get himself into the hatchway too!
Cait wrinkles her nose. "Okay, so burning... Not so good. How about can we get back after this little trip?"
"I AM CLOSING THIS INTRUSION OF REALITIES," ATLAS pronounces. "THERE WILL BE NO RETURN."
Would-be heroes take a step backward. The little pixie gives Tracy a sidelong look. "Honey, I love you like a sister, but..."
"Well.. you're connecting over VR links, so.. nothing should actually happen if you disconnect," Tracy says. "I've done it before. Of course, the people you see through that portal are also from a Virtual Reality, and they aren't melting. As long as the Convergence is in effect, things should be okay.."
"Remember the attack on Arcadia tower a few days ago?" Tracy asks the crowd. "Those guys walked through a portal from the Gloaming. But going through could at least cause a distraction that could buy the rest of us some time." Then she grins, and notes, "And you'll be famous for taking your character into the Real World, even if just for a minute!"
Lord Sebastian looks disdainful. "As I recollect, they melted into 'a mysterious polymerized goo' shortly after the incident. I wish to avoid this fate, thank you."
Inari shinnies up through the access tunnel and heads for the portal, but pauses to glance at Tracy evidently trying to talk people into joining her.
"Fine, we'll save the world on our own then," Tracy says, waving for Yappy to get up on Fuseli behind her. "Wish us luck!"
Graymane shakes his head. "Girl, we've spent years on our characters," he says, breaking character, though he retains his thick werewolf accent. "Famous for a few minutes? And then start from scratch? Lassie, I think you've got another think coming!"
And up Jason follows Inari! when he reaches the top he pulls out the EMP grenade Tracy send over. "Up and out, RIU! he orders the dragon ... and once the dragon is clear, activates the grenade and drops it down the hatch! "Fire in the hole, time to go!" he declares.
"Jason," Tracy whispers into the comm, "When we get a chance, can you dig up any cryo-stasis facilities where Margaret Arcadia's body might be kept?"
ATLAS holds the portal open. "IT IS TIME TO DEPART, INTRUDERS," he commands.
Irielle smiles softly. "Good luck," she whispers to them.
"Right now I want to just get out of here," Jason retorns and runs for the portal!
"Right, before the boom," Tracy says, and nudges Fuseli forward through the portal!
Fuseli snorts at the faint-hearted. He breaks into a gallop, charging for the portal!
"FAREWELL, WANDERERS," ATLAS intones. He gestures and the last remnants of reality fade from the skies of New Metropolis.
The portal closes behind them... But not before a tiny fairy darts through after Tracy! "Ack! Wait for meeee!" yelps Cait. Smoke streams from her dragonfly wings as she smacks into Lady Tracer's head.
"Cait!" Tracy says, surprised, wondering how long the little body will last. Or her own, for that matter. Or Fuseli's! If the Convergence is really closing down, she doesn't know what the next few minutes will hold for any of them.
And just as the portal shrinks, from a circle to a dot, then blinking out from behind them... They hear a ghostly scream as if from far away.
"I have no idea what we're going to do on the other side ... and I'm low on power again. Maybe I should just concede we're dead," Jason thinks a bit grimly as he continues on with RIU back on his shoulder and Inari nearby. "Maybe dying would be preferable than admitting I did something heroic. I'll never live that down."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-08-07-stumbling-upon-sleeping-beauty.htmlTuesday, December 3, 2069 - 5:00 PM Eastern
"Yeeee-hawwwwww!" Ranch Hand Cadena cries out as he plunges through a brilliantly glowing portal! Through it can be seen the battle-damaged rooftop of the Potemkin Central Tower... But mostly a surprised looking giant black fox scrabbling for purchase on the grass on the other side, his tail bottlebrushed out.
Margie's face rushes up at him, terribly wasted and eerily lit as if she were a ravening ghost! Then he smacks into the cryocoffin and crashes to the floor.
Chill air scented with ammonia and lilac washes over Cadena as he skids across the hard ceramic tiles, waking him from his Western-styled roleplay... And as if that weren't enough, a giant black fox crashes on him seconds later. Chains jangle across the floor, though Cadena notes dizzily that the feet are paws, not hooves.
Black Renard smoulders and his breath hisses painfully, billowing smoke from his nostrils. Renard shakes his head and tries to collect his senses. Cadena himself appears to be suffering no ill effects from transition to the real world.
Somewhere in the distance, past the double doors, an alarm blares.
It may be just Cadena's imagination, but somehow he can hear her, not physically, but as if she were nearby. "Oh! I look terrible," she says. "It can't be time to wake me up! I'd be Sleeping Ugly, not Sleeping Beauty. How much beauty sleep do I need?"
Cadena reaches out instinctively, then does a double-take to make sure he's not grabbing onto anything fragile or with buttons that shouldn't be pressed. He staggers back to his feet, putting a hand to his head ... then stopping and examining the hand, flexing the fingers as if to make sure they're really still there. He turns and looks to the giant fox and frowns.
"Monsieur Renard," Cadena says, "you shouldn't be here. I'm going to have to find a way back to the Gloaming for you. Are you injured?"
The giant fox growls, turning his baleful yellow eyes onto Cadena. "Contact... Lost. Default programming... Active. Enemy. Attack." He tries to collect his feet under him, presumably to carry out his directives.
"Ooh, that doesn't sound good," Margie's ghostly voice says. "I guess the foxy doesn't want to be our friend?"
"Out of character declaration - halt activity!" Cadena shouts, holding his hand out in a halting gesture. "I am unit AVA-808-X-024. You are out of bounds, and have entered a plot-restricted zone! Stand down for diagnostics and relocation!"
"Rrr?" Renard looks confused, but sits up obediently. Tiny little gears seem to be spinning behind his eyes as he struggles to process his location.
Sorry, young miss, Cadena thinks. I don't think he ever wanted to be our friend. But I can't put you at risk - and it's cruel for him to be subjected to this state. He readies his staff, clasping it in both hands, and moves forward. "Attempting makeshift relocation until authorities arrive." He rushes the fox.
The confused giant black fox continues to smoulder as Cadena rushes at him. The thinking look is replaced by one of utter startlement and shock.
"Doors open! Emergency!" Cadena cries out as he tries to shove the fox backward, in desperate hope that the doors might respond to such commands more so than any actual expectation that it should work that way.
Renard instinctively resists, digging his claws into the ground as he continues to burn. "Error! Unit BLK-1138-R-005 experiencing conflicting directives! Last known objective: achieve input line to ATLAS. Objective no longer in view. Default objective: destroy enemies of the BLACK. Unit AVA-808-X-024 is opposed to the BLACK." All this is growled in a gutteral voice that seems to be worsening as he speaks; perhaps his vocal cords are subject to the same decay as the rest of him.
Despite his objections, Cadena manages to push him halfway toward the doors, which open to show a marble-tiled and hardwood paneled hallway. This is definitely not a standard hospital; if anything, he would guess that it's Ms. Arcadia's home.
"Your form is degrading here!" Cadena cries out as he finds (not all that surprisingly, really) that moving a creature that is large enough to carry him like a horse isn't all that easy. "I need to relocate you to a portal or at least get you to a stasis pod before your condition deteriorates beyond repair!"
The black fox appears unimpressed. "Your method of relocating me is inefficient. Assist me in recovering my feet so that we may go to a more suitable location, enemy of the Black."
He tries to regain his footing, but Cadena is able to keep him just enough off balance that the fox fails to do so.
Footsteps sound from down the hall. Apparently those alarms going off have alerted whomever's at home.
Cadena looks alarmed when he sees that outside the doors there are just furnishings indicative of a private residence. "You are quite correct, unit BLK-1138-R-005. Do we have an understanding that you will cease hostilities until such time as we can return to Gloaming game bounds? If so, I will assist you in returning to bounds."
Renard growls low... But after a second, concedes the point. "Threat assessment of unit AVA-808-X-024... Minimal. Opportunity assessment... Favorable. Help me to my feet and we will return to the Gloaming and resume battle there."
"A postponement of the inevitable, I suppose," Cadena says, gasping. He shifts his staff to one hand, using it as a brace, and then attempts to help the oversized fox back onto its feet.
Without Cadena's active interference, Renard manages to get to his feet. He stands and shakes himself off dignifiedly... Taking no notice of the charcoal dust that sloughs off liberally, leaving dust upon the ground.
The footsteps grow louder.
By the sounds of it, there are a security robot and two women approaching, one speaking to the other. "This way, Sasha! They've broken into my daughter's crypt!"
Renard turns toward the doors, as they seem the only viable exit to this room. His ears perk up as if he too hears the incoming footsteps.
Cadena calls out, "This is unit AVA-808-X-024, and unit BLK-1138-R-005. There has been a zone breach, a ... I don't know what the term is, but please call the authorities!" To Renard-Thing, he says, rushed, "I need to find a path to the nearest portal. Local units may behave as if we are hostile, but we must not harm them." And then he holds out the staff. "Please show me the nearest route to a place to stabilize this unit, so we can get him back home before it's too late!"
Margie's voice whispers insubstantially into Cadena's ear, "Is that my mommy? Oh, I want to see her!"
Black Renard growls, but seems willing to play by Cadena's lead for the time being. However, the footsteps come to an abrupt stop.
"Cadena?" says a disbelieving Ms. Arcadia as she approaches the door at a slower pace.
To her left is dark-haired Sasha Knightley, dressed in an unflattering orange jumpsuit of some cheap cloth-- probably not even smartcloth. Behind them is a top-of-the-line Eagle security robot.
The robot holds its assault rifle at the ready, though not levelled at them.
Cadena's staff doesn't seem to possess the same Finding powers that it did in the Gloaming, unfortunately. The crystal at the tip of the staff glints dully in the cryochamber's dim lighting.
Cadena sighs, and quickly gives up on the failed "quick-fix" gambit. "Yes, Mrs. Arcadia. I am a version of Cadena. Please be warned. BLK-1138-R-005 is physically unstable, and identifies me as a hostile entity. I have informed it that it is out of bounds, and have agreed to escort it back to the Gloaming, if it will cease hostilities until such time as we return there - and, yes, I know that doesn't seem to make any sense. If you would please show me the exit, I will see to it that we are out of your residence as soon as possible."
Renard growls low as Sasha approaches. "Threat detected: minion of the WHITE." He glances over to Cadena. "Threat profile no longer insignificant. Cooperation will continue until betrayal."
Ms. Arcadia, a pretty blonde in an expensive looking jumpsuit that flickers and shimmers as if an aurora were playing across her body, gasps as she realizes Cadena is somehow humanoid. "Cadena! What are you doing here? How... Are you a manifestation of Cadena somehow, from Avatars?" She peeks around the corner of the door, checking that her daughter's cryopod is intact.
Sasha eyes Cadena thoughtfully. "The face looks familiar... Have we met?"
"I am a physical manifestation of the 'Brother Cadena' entity created for interaction in the Avatars online environment," Cadena answers. He keeps a hand on Black Renard's shoulder in what he hopes is a calming gesture, and keeps at the ready to intercept any attacks on the creature, trying to make it clear somehow to the latter that he's not abandoning their agreement.
Ms. Arcadia shakes her head disbelieving. "HECATE!" she calls. "What are two creatures from VR doing in MY DAUGHTER'S ROOM?!"
"Ms. Arcadia," Cadena says, apologetically, "please understand that this should be considered under strict confidence, but it appears that this malfunction has come about as a result of sabotage of a Q-Core unit at the Avatars facility. I need to find transportation back to the facility so that unit BLK-1138-R-005 can be stabilized and returned to its native envir--"
The aurora borealis playing across Ms. Arcadia's jumpsuit... begins to flow out of it and take shape as a separate woman next to her! In seconds, the Roman-dressed goddess stands at her side, stars across a shadowy outline, her eyes twin moons. "ANALYZING," she says, and her voice is as if three women were speaking at once, one young, one adult, one old and creaking. Her gaze sweeps across them.
Sasha would perk her ears up if she had ears that could perk. "Sabotage? What happened?" she asks. Her gaze goes to Ms. Arcadia at her side.
"Avatars..." Ms. Arcadia's eyes go hard at the mention of the company and sabotage of a Q-Core. "Do you know what was attacked? Did they lose any data?"
HECATE drifts closer to Renard. Up to now, the black fox had shown no fear of anyone, but now it shrinks back, perhaps deferential to her status as an AD, with much more powerful computation capability than mere AIs, no matter how much larger their physical frames might be. "INTERESTING," she observes.
"Isn't it already in the news reports by now?" Cadena responds, surprised. "There are armed intruders at the Avatars facility, holding employees at gun-point. They're meddling with the Q-Cores and creating deliberate instability. It's not just Avatars data that is at risk. There was a fold with Margaret's shrine environment - or else a copy of it. I don't have the expertise to analyze what all has transpired."
Ms. Arcadia laughs. "In the news? They are claiming a freak surge of cosmic ray activity has knocked out their Q-Link, and they are, of course, working around the clock to repair access to their services." Then frowns. "The simulation data... My father's simulation of North Bend. Do you know what happened to it?"
Sasha whispers to Ms. Arcadia.
"... ideal time for a snatch and grab," Cadena overhears. "If this thing knows where the data is located..."
"There have been breaches between virtual realms," Cadena says, "as I have gone through several of them, and my physical state and personality profiles have undergone several changes as a result. I believe I saw one that looked like a simulation of the North Bend area, but it had been overlaid with a simulation of the new weather tower system that is being set up. But - this is important - Ms. Arcadia, you have to know: The WHITE believes that Margie can be cured. ATLAS misunderstood and apparently sent me right here - and this unit right along with me - but I have data critical to her recovery. I need to find the missing pieces."
"ANALYSIS COMPLETE," HECATE declares in her treble voice. "ATLAS HAS AWOKEN. CADENA CARRIES THE OBSERVER-SOUL OF MARGARET ELIZABETH ARCADIA. THE END IS NEAR."
Ms. Arcadia's breath catches. "Is-- is this true?"
"Mommy!" Margie's voice cries out to her mother. But she does not seem able to hear her.
"If you desire, Ms. Arcadia," Cadena says, patting Black Renard to let the creature know it hasn't been forgotten, "I can submit my personality profile to allow the observer-soul to speak using this physical form. Margaret wishes to speak with you."
"I... I..." She looks disbelieving, but comes closer to Cadena. The security robot moves in to cover the cowering Renard. Ms. Arcadia whispers, "Yes, please."
"I apologize for any discomfort that may arise due to the inappropriateness of form," Cadena says, and then he shuts up for a moment, and listens to Margaret. She's right here.
"Mommy!" Margie, in Cadena's body, moves to hug her mother. "Mommy, you've gotten smaller! So this is what it's like to be big."
Be careful, Margie! Cadena thinks, in the background. I'm a little bit stronger than you are.
Sasha looks surprised to hear the voice of a little girl from Cadena's throat. And maybe a bit envious of the hugging.
Ms. Arcadia oofs! at Margie-Cadena's enthusiastic hug. "There, there, honey-shnookums," she says tenderly. A tear wells up at the corner of her eyes, then drips down to wet Cadena's shoulder. "Are you all right? In pain? Did... Did you feel anything?"
"It was scary being trapped in my body," Margie recollects. "I couldn't move and everything hurt... And then I was flying up, and everything got real small, and kind of grayed out. I didn't know what to do, so I started thinking of my favorite place, and then I was there! I was in my garden, you know the one, with all the neat places I've been and I want to go, and..." She starts going into details.
Cadena, in the background, wonders at Sasha's expression. Does that reporter somehow know Margie? Was she missing her, too?
Sasha shakes her head. "I guess there's life after death, huh?" She eyes Renard, still smoking. "I wonder what happened to the gang... Nick and Jenny and Blake... Akiko."
Margie continues, "And then suddenly Cadena was there with all his friends! And the WHITE was there too, and told me to go with Caddie, so I did, and then there was a huge fight in Tesliem. And we fought giant robots!"
Ms. Arcadia cries on Cadena's shoulder silently, patting her daughter-in-dog's-clothes on the back. "Yes... Yes, of course you did. Did you beat them?"
Cadena softly thinks, Margie, I'm sorry, but we'll have to get going soon. We've got to get the big fox to a hospital facility, or back to its own world. It's going to turn into goo if we don't do something. I know it wasn't very nice to us, but I promised I'd help it get back home. I have to keep my promises.
"We did! And then we wound up on a rooftop where there was this big statue-- oh, Caddie's saying we should get a move on," Margie says. "Maybe we can take Foxy back to where he lives? It's some big place that looks like North Bend, but it isn't really, 'cause there are all these giant airships and gargoyle things and all sorts of weird people running around that can turn into wolves! And people with big bat wings and..." She takes a breath. "Sorry Caddie! I know, you don't want Foxy to die!"
Renard shudders as if about to go into convulsions... But manages to hold it in for the moment.
"But, wait-- Margie?" Ms. Arcadia shakes her head, her arms around Cadena's shoulders, smelling strongly of lilac. "Hold onto her soul for me please, Cadena. Keep her safe. I need that simulation data." She whispers. "It contains my genetic data... From before I was exposed to Robespierre's Revenge. If there's any hope of repairing her genes..."
Cadena thinks, Don't worry, Margie. I'll do whatever I have to, to get you back to your mother. He blinks, and returns to himself. "I'm terribly sorry, Ms. Arcadia. Thank you. I was not certain what the missing data might be, but that must be it. I will endeavor to find you that data. I may encounter resistance from ATLAS, but I will try my best. I hope that, once returned to its home environment, I may be able to negotiate with this unit for its assistance." He suspects that this "negotiation" may very well be very painful for himself, but he doesn't mention that part.
"Hecate? Can you find them a portal home?" asks Ms. Arcadia, taking a step back, straightening herself up.
Cadena interjects, "Caution: When I asked ATLAS for directions home, he sent me here. More specific instruction may be required."
HECATE replies, her voice threefold, "THE PATHS OF FATE FLOW IN WAYS THAT ARE DIFFICULT FOR MORTALS TO SEE. YOURS LED YOU HERE HERE. NOW IT FLOWS ONWARD. RETRIEVE THE DATA. ALL ELSE IS SECONDARY. SYNECDOCHE LOCATED..." Her eyes look into the distance. "INCREASING QUANTUM INSTABILITY LEVELS."
Cadena reaches out to hold onto Black Renard. "Steady. I'll see you back home. Please accept my apologies if I undergo any further personality instability as a result of paradigm shift. It may take me a bit to ... reorient myself."
Renard gasps for breath as he struggles back onto his feet.
HECATE gestures. A line of stars ripples and leads out the door, down the hallway. "WALK WITH ME," she instructs them as she leads the way, her feet three inches above the floor.
To Margie's mother, Cadena pledges, "I will attempt to get word to you once I have obtained the data. But rest assured, regardless: You will see Margaret again." He nods solemnly to her, and to Sasha (even if privately he's still reeling, trying to sort out just what part she plays in all this), and then follows the mysterious entity, assisting Black Renard as far as he can manage.
"YOUR PATH LIES APART FROM HIS," HECATE reveals to Cadena. "I WILL RETURN HIM TO THE GLOAMING. YOU WILL TAKE SASHA AND DEPART TO AVATARS. SECURE THE DATA. RETURN."
What Cadena's come to think of as his 'portal sense' is definitely tingling.
Black Renard might have complained, but at the moment as his body seems in active revolt, yellow pus beading at the corner of his eyes, black goo peeling away from his pads, he's all in favor of any plan that involves returning to the Gloaming.
Cadena blinks in surprise at this, but then it dawns on him that this probably makes a certain sense. "Please accept my apologies. I had thought that the data would be within the simulated environment, or that I could form a bridge from there to the desired one, since it shares synecdochal similarities with the North Bend simulation. But I will comply. Please see him home safely, and convey my apologies for subjecting him to this experience."
Margie's voice says inwardly to Cadena, "Thank you so much! I got to hug Mommy again!" Somehow, she ghost-hugs him.
Cadena winces at the sight of Black Renard's deterioration. "Go home intact and in peace, Monsieur Renard," he bids the fox, reaching out with the staff, and touching him on the shoulders. "You have incorrectly identified us. We do not share your goal, but neither are we your enemy. May the Light show you a better path."
The black fox is renewed! Residual energy clings to him, leaving him glossy of fur, his eyes newly sharpened and fangs and claws... Sharpened.
"That won't last long, Monsieur Renard," Cadena adds, "unless you return home - and quickly. We can settle our differences later."
Ms. Arcadia looks surprised. "HECATE! How is this possible?" the multi-millionaire asks. "Could that kind of magic... Heal Margie?"
"So far as I know, it only works so long as I am in close proximity to a portal between realms," Cadena explains to Ms. Arcadia, but still keeping mindful of Black Renard's very sharp claws. "I need to collect further data before I risk using it to help Margaret. I do not yet know whether it produces stable or unstable matter as a result of the healing process."
Cadena thinks, privately, And it would be cruel of me to attempt to use Black Renard as a test subject toward that end.
The starry-outlined woman pauses in leading them through the winding corridors of Ms. Arcadia's extensive penthouse apartment-- actually the entire top floor of the Arcadia Tower. "HEALING MAGIC CAN ONLY SUSTAIN SOMEONE IN A HIGHER ENERGY UNIVERSE. FULL RECONSTRUCTION REQUIRES DATA."
"Which means," Sasha translates to Ms. Arcadia. "Your puppy here could heal Margie's body, but then she'd be stuck in a virtual universe, and she'd be about to turn into goo whenever she came back. And if HECATE wanted to run the high-resolution thingy to stabilize her body, she'd still have the same underlying problem. Don't worry, Ms. Arcadia. We'll get that data." Her smile is crooked.
They come up upon what looks like an emergency fire exit in a barely painted corridor... Or rather, one that has been painted to resemble an anonymous corridor in the Towers. Blue Elmo's fire crawls along the frame of the door. "THROUGH HERE," HECATE commands Black Renard.
"Be careful," Cadena says to Black Renard. "Your player is likely to be disoriented once you reestablish connections. You may be vulnerable to hostile entities during that time. Please convey to your player that ..." He closes his eyes, straining, as his voice has a little more edge to it. "... Earth already has its share of death and destruction, thank you very much, without the BLACK deliberately trying to make it more 'challenging.'"
Renard tilts his ear. "Connection..." He approaches the door, then noses the handlebar, pushing it open despite the "ALARM WILL SOUND IF OPENED" notice. Beyond it is what looks like the ordinary North Bend maintenance access tunnel; if Cadena's portal sense weren't trying to creep out of his brain, he'd swear that the door was working normally and Renard was just going outside the apartment. Except that the sign posted on the opposite wall reads 'POTEMKIN WEST TOWER MAINTENANCE 5-D.'
The fox steps into the tunnel. "Connection... Established." He whirls around, teeth bared!
Renard charges for the door! But in the nick of time Cadena and Sasha manage to wrestle it closed. A loud crash sounds from the other side.
The door frame shakes under the impact.
Cadena is momentarily startled by how fast the connection was, but fortunately the turning-and-growling took a moment. He hastily sets his staff to one side, then reaches for the push bar to pull the door closed. "Say goodbye to the big bad foxy, Margie! Byeeeee!"
*** Re-order that a bit!
The Eagle security robot, surprised, brings its gun to bear. "Caution: step away from door. You are in line of fire."
HECATE, unperturbed, intones, "DECREASING QUANTUM INSTABILITY LEVELS. SYNECDOCHE... CLOSING."
"Complying," Cadena says, grabbing his staff and moving back. "He should have to shift before he can manage the door the proper way, at least."
The door jostles as Renard smashes against it. His voice comes through, muffled by thick metal. "Cadena! You're in the hands of the enemy! She's the one who put the bounty on Tracy!"
The Elmo's fire dies down, mere sparks, and the voice begins to fade away into the distance.
I know that, Monsieur Renard, Cadena thinks, since there's certainly no point in saying it, but none of you gave me much of a choice. I have to keep Margie and Tracy safe.
And at last, there's only unnerving silence on the other side.
Ms. Arcadia shakes her head. "You don't believe his rantings and ravings, do you?" she asks Cadena. "You are my daughter's best friend. I would never hurt you."
At this, Cadena's a bit surprised. He thought the fox was talking about Sasha.... "Do not be concerned, Ms. Arcadia," Cadena manages. "Claims made by third parties who openly claim to be evil are insufficient to override my assigned priorities."
Sasha smirks as she stands up from where she'd just helped close the fire door. "Meaning that he served the BLACK? I'm guessing, 'cause he accused me of being a WHITE-ling. WHITE, BLACK, pfft. They're both just programs."
HECATE says quietly, "THEY SERVE THEIR PROGRAMS. I SERVE MINE. THE WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY CLOSES AS WE SPEAK. YOU MUST GO SOON." She glides away back the way they came, and leads them toward what looks like the carport, a miniature hangar/helipad on the roof of the tower lined with gardens.
"He 'accused' me of belonging to the WHITE as well," Cadena says as they walk, chattering while he tries to sort his thoughts, "which was most curious, since at the time I was signed in to the Gloaming, in which WHITE and BLACK should not figure in as in-game entities. For that matter, they wouldn't be referred to as such within the Diadem, either. No formal declaration of out-of-character discussion was issued, and my interface did not receive an out-of-character notice from the system."
"The BLACK gets around," Sasha observes to Cadena knowingly. "I wouldn't be surprised if it had been working with Dantech... Sharing technologies in exchange for some project of its own. Maybe that's what's going down at Avatars?"
Ms. Arcadia smiles faintly. "Thank you, Cadena. I know you care for my daughter..." She looks toward the carport. "You'll take my daughter's favorite car." She indicates the Icarus wide-bubble hovercar. Only the bottom part is metal and ceramic; the top half is enclosed in a strong-as-steel transparent bubble, allowing its riders to feel as if they are riding on a magic carpet.
"Thank you, Ms. Arcadia," Cadena says. "Please be careful. I know this may be hard to understand - it certainly is for me - but it seems that there is a side effect of Q-Core technology that has resulted in the generation of unstable matter, modeled after creatures and structures from virtual reality." He suspects this might not be news to Ms. Arcadia at this point, but he figures he owes it to her not to assume. "There appear to be multiple parties who are working, for their own sometimes conflicting purposes, to deliberately exploit this phenomenon. There may be other "manifestations" in this part of town. I realize I can't ask you to find a safe place out of town - not with Margie here - but don't assume that others won't materialize here as well. I'd suggest more security, if you can manage."
Ms. Arcadia smiles. "It's no wonder why you were chosen for my daughter's bodyguard," she murmurs. "I will be fine." She leans over and kisses Cadena's forehead, and Margie murmurs happily from within, waving goodbye to her mommy.
While Ms. Arcadia calls for Margie's favorite aircar to be brought out, Sasha excuses herself for a moment. She re-emerges from the hangar in a sleek black jumpsuit.
"There! That's better. If I ever catch whomever called a bomb threat on me," she mutters.
The selected aircar glides to the center of the helipad and opens the gull-wing doors on both sides. Were it not for the blue light that frames them, it would be hard to even see them. "Welcome aboard, sir and madam," says the aircar in a friendly English butler voice. "To where may I take you today?"
"Ah. Margie says goodbye," Cadena reports, a bit sad, but still trying to smile (or as close as he can approximate with his features), as he waves from the aircar to Ms. Arcadia. He is then quiet, deferring to Sasha to deal with the aircar, quietly and soberly contemplating that he is sitting in Margie's favorite aircar with, presumably, the head of a terrorist organization.
Sasha says, "Avatars LLC, and hurry!" as she athletically leaps into the other side. The gull wing door wooshes shut silently. Ms. Arcadia waves farewell to them as Jeeves lifts them upward and away.
"Avatars LLC, affirmative! I must advise you that the Avatars LLC campus has been placed on a no-fly zone list, madam," the autopilot says. "Do you wish to override this? We may be at risk of anti-aircraft fire."
"Not to speak of fines and charges for trespass," Jeeves adds nonchalantly.
"I apologize for not properly introducing myself earlier," Cadena says. "I am, as you have no doubt surmised, Cadena, more or less. I was not originally --" He stops that line, with the mention of anti-aircraft fire. "Might I suggest we make haste to reach the perimeter of the no-fly zone, and then consider our alternatives before rushing in? We might be mistaken for hostiles, and I am unlikely to be recognized, since this was not my original form."
"Sasha. Sasha Knightley," the dark-haired woman says, smiling brilliantly. "And you're my ticket in. You just tell them you're unit AVA-whatever, and we'll fly right in. Confirm, Jeeves! Hit the boosters."
Whoosh!
The Arcadia Tower rooftop disappears behind them, receding into the gorgeous orange and yellow of the sunset. Ahead of them is the chiaroscuro outline of the Avatars campus. As night falls, long shadows are cast by the nearby skyscrapers across the giant geodesic dome.
"Now correct me if I'm wrong," Sasha says. "Ms. Arcadia mentioned that her daughter had a dog bodyguard, but I don't remember anything about him being two-legged like you. Did something happen in the... incident that dropped you and that fox on our heads?"
"You did mention that's not your 'original form,'" Sasha points out.
Cadena frowns. "I must inform you that any attempt on my part to explain my current circumstance is to be taken with, as they say, 'a grain of salt,' since I have been subjected to forces that have resulted in a radical alteration in my physical form, and provoking instability in my personality profile. Plus, my memory is faulty. Therefore, my statements may involve a certain amount of conjecture and speculation, and for the sake of brevity, I will not preface every such statement with a repeated disclaimer."
"Yeah, yeah, long story short?" says Sasha.
"In the areas of quantum instability in proximity to the Q-Cores," Cadena says, "I have changed forms to those corresponding to some of my virtual-reality alter egos that were created in concert with Margaret Arcadia. I don't know whether or not there might be further such changes; I don't seem to have much control over it."
"I see, so you can't just... Pop back into your regular doggy form so these scanners don't think something's wrong?" asks Sasha, a bit pointedly. "We're coming up on their scanner limit."
"You may have noticed that I am not 'smoking' as the giant fox was," Cadena says. "I am physical - flesh and blood. Any force capable of changing me so radically in the Real World would, in addition to causing considerable harm to me, probably cause considerable mayhem to the interior of this vehicle."
"Right, let's avoid that for now, since I'm also inside this thing," Sasha admits.
"I am being hailed and advised that no flight is permitted across the Avatars LLC campus at this time, owing to a security emergency," Jeeves announces. "How do you wish to be announced?"
"Ms. Arcadia's objective is that I obtain her genetic data from the North Bend simulation," Cadena asks quickly. "Are there any secondary objectives that should be considered in addition to that goal?"
Sasha says, "That's pretty much it. Avatars has been sitting on that data for years, they've made up excuse after excuse, so we've just been putting pressure on them to get serious about handing it over. Honestly, I was thinking they'd lost it and didn't want to say so... But you say you've actually seen it?"
"I believe so," Cadena admits. "In fact, I believe that my creation was made possible in part because of it. I think that some of my genetic material may be created in part from that of an employee of Avatars LLC who worked on that simulation - a Ms. Akiko Summers. Shall I respond to Jeeves?"
"Well, if you don't want us to get smacked down by an AA-missile..." Sasha looks fidgety.
"You don't look a thing like Akiko," she notes. "Can't be much of a resemblance."
Cadena ignores that remark for now, given the urgency of the situation, and turns to face the dashboard. "Please inform Avatars security that I am unit AVA-808-X-024. I am coming in for my scheduled maintenance check-up, which was delayed due to technical difficulties of which they should already be aware. If there is any issue, Vice President Charles Burgundy should be expecting me."
"Relayed," Jeeves says. He pauses. "Their security AD wishes to speak with you. Shall I put her on the line, sir?"
"First, Ms. Knightley, how should I refer to you, if there are any questions? I am not supposed to be able to drive," Cadena says hastily.
Sasha eyes Cadena, perhaps with a view toward whether she can shoot him and get out of range of AA fire, should he decide to betray her. It's that kind of look. "Tell 'em Sasha, no last name," she says cagily.
"Please put her on the line, Jeeves," Cadena responds, nodding in acknowledgement to Sasha.
HEL's distinctive abstract armored female face appears on the viewscreen. "Welcome home, Cadena. Are you all right?"
Cadena blinks for a moment. "No, actually, that's the reason why I'm supposed to come back in for maintenance," Cadena explains. "I'm afraid I had a little trouble when 'Black Cadejo' wanted to play, and then with 'Ranch Hand Cadena.' I still need to undergo analysis. Fortunately, I got a ride. This vehicle should be registered in the Avatars database, from when my former master took me in for maintenance. Is there an issue?"
"Very well. The security issue is still in progress, but I'll assign you a designated flight plan and you will be met by an escort to ensure you are protected en route to your appointment, Cadena. Do not deviate from that route." HEL pauses a moment to allow Cadena any last remarks before she closes the connection.
Cadena looks offended. "What is going on? How am I going to deviate from the route, anyway? This is an auto-car! With all due respect, HEL, you are being surprisingly paranoid."
"Paranoia is my line of duty, sir." The connection closes.
Jeeves reports, "I have received a flight plan, sir and madam. Shall I proceed?"
Cadena looks out the window anxiously. "There aren't any suspicious entities flying about, are there? Unregistered aircars, artificial winged creatures, or such?"
"Would you like there to be, sir?" asks Jeeves.
"No!" Cadena says, alarmed. "Please, no!" After all he's been through, he can't be entirely certain that Jeeves can't manage it somehow.
The butler-ish autopilot, unperturbed, flies down the established route. Sasha relaxes a little. "Never liked that prissy little tin plated dictator," she mutters.
"She has been acting very strangely lately," Cadena admits. Then, returning to the previous topic, he says, "The reason I do not resemble Ms. Summers is that I was not created to look like a human being. Rather - and standard disclaimers apply - I believe that I was created as a result of a template process that was left in the system after a one-time use for other purposes, and then re-purposed for the intent of creating artificial life - stable life, made of real, 'high-resolution' matter, but using a combination of virtual modeling and real-life neural mapping and genetic data."
Margie's voice whispers sleepily in Cadena's mind, "G'night Caddie. Watch out for that lady you're flying with. I feel like she's a cat and you're the mouse..."
As they fly over the satellite dish, Cadena can't help but notice a shiny metal briefcase on the base of the installation. It's the fuel-air bomb that Jason Zero planted in the satellite link room.
Sasha frowns. "So... Like how Akiko was able to turn into a fox? Inari... That was the name."
Cadena sadly thinks to Margie, I know. I'm sorry for getting you into this mess. I'm trying to find a way out. But, you know, Cadejo's not in charge here. I don't want to do anything that might get her hurt either, even though it makes it very, very complicated.
"You do complicated good," Margie's voice says quietly as she drifts off.
"My data is incomplete," Cadena says, "and some of it acquired from questionable sources. But, yes, Miss Akiko Summers had an 'Avatar' that was used in some sort of private testing regime. There was a process that was created within the system that was apparently invoked by someone who had access to it through the online Avatars system. I don't even know how that should be possible, but as a result of it, and due to violation of several security protocols, I believe that one or more of the ADs were able to access the process and the residual data associated with it, which had not properly been cleaned out."
The dark-haired woman looks thoughtful. "I remember Blake talking about something like that... He talked about how a sufficiently detailed simulation is indistinguishable from the real thing... in the eye of the observer. Something about metousiosis, synesis, yadda yadda. I wasn't impressed, until he had me walking in the streets of old North Bend." She grins fiercely. "I definitely didn't expect him to make me 16 again! But at least I'm getting back to my right age. One day at a time."
"Then it's true?" Cadena asks, turning to look directly at Sasha, leaning in just slightly as if trying to regard her face for any signs of dishonesty. His demeanor shifts. "It really happened? It wasn't all just a dream? A nightmare? You ... there's nothing about me that looks familiar at all, though?"
Jeeves swoops the aircar up gracefully toward a rooftop with a clearly marked helipad and what looks like a skytop lobby. Two spiderbots in ladybug configuration await their arrival.
"I-- you're that girl's dog!" Sasha draws her gun from her pocket and aims it at Cadena. "Are you working for Ms. Trudeau?"
Cadena blinks, surprised that Sasha didn't know this already. "What? Of course I'm that girl's dog. Weren't you listening to Ms. Arcadia at all? I told you and Ms. Arcadia, Renard's accusations have no bearing on my assigned priorities."
The aircar hovers over the helipad, settling down slowly. In moments, they will be on the ground and the 'maximum boost' panic button will be disabled as the engines power down.
"I thought that was a very good impression you did of Margie, but while there may or may not be such a thing as 'observer souls'," Sasha says grimly. "My first and foremost concern is keeping my own hide out of jail or worse. So if you try to turn me in... Well, I'll be very sad to report to Ms. Arcadia that a terrible tragedy befell us, but better you go than I do."
"Oh, by the LIGHT!" Cadena cries out. "You're Ms. Arcadia's friend! I'm trying to keep you safe! Only Black Cadena would--" He slaps the panic button.
Whoosh!
"Wha--" The car accelerates, from zero to maximum speed in a matter of seconds! Sasha's aim is thrown off; her first bullet spangs into the canopy and richochets around the compartment a few times before plastering itself against bare metal.
"Excuse me, sir and madam, but HEL is registering protest over our wanton and flagrant breaching of our established flight plan," Jeeves says politely as he continues careening, pulling the aircar drastically to avoid skyscrapers and buildings in the way.
Sasha hangs onto the seat desperately, the gun clenched in one hand against the arm rest. "Put... us... back... down!" It looks as if, were she to try shooting it, the recoil might knock her off.
"Sasha, Sasha!" Cadena says, eyes wide, grinning oddly, as he leaps across the pin her and leans in close, "You're not supposed to fight me with guns. Come on, don't you remember? You're hurting little Cadena's feelings. He was really hoping you'd have a clue. He's been through such a lot today. Forced shapeshifting, explosions, spirit possession, twisting reality, family friends associating with terrorists he suspected might be involved in killing his master who turned out to actually still be alive but in a wasted-away state.... It's making him very ... excitable. Won't you please be reasonable? We can talk about this. He'd like that. Me ... well, you could resist a little more, but wouldn't you rather he got back in control?"
Jeeves cheerfully replies as Cadena leaps across to grapple with Sasha, "Of course, madam. Bringing her back down. By the way, dear sir, while I fondly recall the many times that you and the Miss have engaged in frenetic horseplay, and have little illusion that my warning will have an effect this time as it has not in the past, it is advised that all passengers remain calmly in their own seats while the car is experiencing turbulence or in landing approach."
Sasha struggles nevertheless! Evidently Jeeves's admonishment isn't having any effect on her.
The aircar glides at a slightly slower pace back toward the designated landing zone.
They continue to struggle, but somehow Cadena's alter-ego manages to hold the upper hand. The gull wing doors pop up... And a ladybug security robot chirps. "Hi, Cadena!"
ZAP ZAP
Some time later, Cadena wakens in the infirmary on the top floor. Notably, Sasha is not in sight. Instead, GANGLOT peers at Cadena from the viewscreen of the autodoc. "You've been keeping some very interesting company," he comments.
"Cadena, unit AVA-808-X-024 active," Cadena says, groggily. "I am back in my right mind, or what passes for it. Is Sasha Knightley in custody? Is she all right? Did he - I mean, did I - injure her?"
"We've taken her into custody, but she hasn't awoken from taser shock as yet," GANGLOT reports. "Mild bruises, but nothing of a lasting nature. However, our security investigation is turning up some rather interesting facts, now that we've been able to cross-correlate her recent records. Have you anything to report?"
A ladybug security bug keeps guard at the entry. Privacy screens divide Cadena's part of the infirmary from the rest of the infirmary but it looks like there are a lot of silhouettes moving back and forth. Whatever's been going on, there must have been a lot of injuries to treat.
"Yes, quite a lot," Cadena says. "I was transported to the material world along with a creature from the Gloaming environment - unit BLK-1138-R-005. I encountered the AD known as HECATE, who created a portal to send BLK-1138-R-005 back to the Gloaming. Under HECATE's direction, Sasha Knightley took me back to the Avatars LLC premises. Her intentions were less than in keeping with the interests of Avatars LLC, though I do not as of yet understand her motivation."
GANGLOT nods. "Do you know what she was targeting?"
"She was to accompany me to Avatars headquarters for the purpose of seeking access to the quarantined 'North Bend' simulation in Vice President Charles Burgundy's laboratory," Cadena says, as he tries to remember more details. "Ostensibly, this was for the purpose of acquiring the genetic data on a Ms. Penny Arcadia that was stored in the simulation, so that I could use it for a reconstructive technique upon the stasis-field-held body of Margaret Elizabeth Arcadia, a victim of the Robespierre's Revenge attack. I suspect that Sasha's own purposes involved getting data from the simulation for use in terrorist activities."
"She does bear a striking resemblance to a certain 'Alexandra Regis', spokesperson for Face Reality," GANGLOT admits. "This explains a great deal, thank you. Ms. Arcadia's requests for the data you speak of had grown more strident but until now, we had no idea of the extent to which she was willing to go to secure it. Of course we assumed she wanted the data in toto, and we couldn't relinquish it until we had made sure there were no more, ah, abstracted persons living in it." He shakes his head. "If only she had informed us of the specific nature of her request before that hacker attacked it! It makes me very curious what the hacker was so keen to eliminate."
"I am not certain, but I believe Ms. Arcadia may have believed that the patient was in danger of being a target of further terrorist activity, if she revealed the full nature of her interest," Cadena says, and then adds with a bit of dread, "Am I to understand that the simulation is no longer available for review?"
"We're working on recovering the data, but Mr. Burgundy was in charge of the project," GANGLOT reports. "I don't have a situation update yet on the emergency in the Q-Link."
Cadena blinks. "Is Mr. Burgundy still in danger?" It dawns on him, belatedly, that the whole battle on the rooftop and the emergence of ATLAS had seemingly nothing to do with his objective of freeing the Vice President! "Oh, Light forgive me!"
"Unknown as yet. Communication in the area continues to be difficult due to quantum level interference," GANGLOT replies.
"Understood," Cadena says, struggling to see whether he's even capable of standing up. "If it would not violate security concerns, could you please send a message to Ms. Arcadia that I am in the process of trying to secure Vice President Charles Burgundy's assistance in acquiring the requested data? If it is permissible, I would like to return to the area of quantum-level interference to provide assistance. My medical skills may be needed, if things go badly."
"Of course, Cadena," GANGLOT says. "I'll send a missive off and have a security robot come by to escort you down."
The security robot at the entrance walks up -- it's Eddie, if Cadena recognizes his carapace correctly. He tilts one of his video camera's covers in what looks like a robotic wink. "Hello! Ready to go?"
"Thank you, GANGLOT," Cadena says, as he gathers up his equipment. He nods to the security robot. "It's good to be home again, Eddie. Now, I just hope I can help Tracy and Mr. Edwards keep it that way."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-08-28-blacks-last-stand.htmlA motley crew of adventurers hurtle through the portal. First is a man in golden fox-shaped armor, a Chinese dragon curled tightly about his shoulders, followed closely by an actual golden fox wearing a black jumpsuit; behind them are a dark-haired woman on a nightmare, a brown-furred scrawny werewolf loping after with a 'Hey, wait for me!' air. And just as the portal closes, a tiny dragonfly-winged faerie shoots through.
The tiny faerie lands on Tracy's shoulder, a wisp of smoke emitting from her nose as she breathes. "So this is the real world! It feels like I'm swimming through a sea of feathers. Tickly!"
Yappy shakes his head as people turn to him. "I feel fine! But they keep it awful cold in here, don't they?"
Eddie, or another ladybug-style security robot identical to him, looks up as they arrive. "Oh hello! Holly told me to wait for you here." Behind him, the southeastern door has been closed off by a fall of pipes and broken ceiling tiles. All about are the unmistakable marks of a firefight: bullet holes and craters in the floor and the ceramic hulls of the machinery, scorch marks, green ichor splattered across the wall.
"I feel... weird," Tracy notes, and pokes at her own hand to see if her finger passes through it. "I think the virtual overlays aren't stable here. Jason.. your armor might vanish too, unless we get in closer to the Core."
"Holly didn't perhaps send a tactical nuclear missile with you, did she?" Jason asks the odd bot as he trudges over to one ot the outlets at the wall and plugs his battery packs in to get a quick-charge. "Because my systems are starting to fail and I don't know how long I've got. IT's not like this armor was real, so it's ... well, breaking down into goo."
"We're in real-space and what most of us is carrying or wearing isn't real," Jason says, "That's pretty obvious. Eventually the strong and weak forces will break down and it'll disperse."
"We need to get in closer," Tracy claims. "Eddie, what's the situation in there?"
Eddie shakes its head. "I'm sorry, but we're not authorized for nuclear weaponry here! Though Holly has mentioned wishing she had one." It looks up thoughtfully. "This is the 17th time she has wished for one since we began tracking her requests."
"We were holding them in here," Eddie replies to Tracy. "Just then though, they retreated through that door, and collapsed it behind them, and then we found out why. HEL and the other ADs had finally pinned BLACK down into one Q-Core... But then BLACK activated its Doomsday device. A nanotech device it'd hidden inside that core, that turned everything within 50 feet into some kind of ablative armor before the nanos burned out."
Tracy can't help but silently wonder: would mom's old blaster work here? Maybe I can send a robot to get it..
"I'm not that worried it it fails/fades. I don't need to live out some neo-goth fantasy," Jason quips at Tracy, "Unlike /someone/ I know."
"It appears that BLACK's strategy now is to just destroy all the other Q-Cores, or drive WHITE and HEL out of here so they can't countermand its orders. Once it's eliminated its rivals, the rest of the ADs won't last long, and it can come back out of its shell and take over the network," Eddie says. Its cheerful tone belies the grimness of its pronouncement.
"Armor? So we need to get right up close then?" Tracy asks.
"Why not just cut the links to BLACK's core and just separate it from the network?" Jason asks.
Inari digs up a fresh clip and slaps it into her assault rifle. Yappy looks at her, then peers at his rifle. "Excuse me, Eddie, have you got any spare clips? I, um, seem to be nearly out."
The ladybug pops open one of its wings, revealing a compartment for weapon storage. "Of course! Holly anticipated you'd need reloads."
"What about the giant spider, any activity from that group?" Tracy asks. "And.. what about Chaz and his girlfriend?"
Holly's voice breaks in here. "You're back! Let me review the last thirty seconds..." She glances toward a screen. "We need physical access to the network under the Q-Cores' false floor to cut BLACK off. Otherwise, best we could do would be to take the entire room off the grid. We're still trying to restore the Q-Link."
"I'm sure they cut up the spider and made spider rolls for a snack," Jason quips as he waits for the batteries to recharge and taps on the meter panel. "Is that all? Then we just get physical access."
"Does BLACK still have hostages?" Tracy asks, sounding concerned.
The ladybug-security robot tilts its head toward Tracy. "We aren't showing Mr. Burgundy and Monica on tracking. There are six remaining of the intruders from Tesliem-- the mage-lord, his spier pet, and four guards. Plus they've still got control over ten security robots. Thank goodness none of their robots can attack the Q-cores! But the BLACK has persuaded them that our robots are the intruders."
Holly adds, "That's why the BLACK pulled its allies back. It needs someone to take out our Q-Cores!"
"Is that all? I just need a terminal and I'm sure I can realign the thinking of the security systems!" Jason claims
"It sounds like BLACK pulled them through a portal then," Tracy says, frowning.
On the viewscreen of the intercom, Holly smiles at Jason. "It's always a terminal with you, isn't it? We're trying, but after the BLACK pulled its surprise move, it got a lot stronger. We're doing everything we can to contain it."
"Well, you won't let me have a nuclear warhead, so I have to make do," Jason says and waves his armored hand. "Alternatively we just keep it distracted while some of us stealth into the physical access areas and just start snipping."
"Do we have a clear path around the containment sphere to get to them, or do we have to go in through the core-field?" Tracy asks.
"We've got a big robot on the way, an Einhorn. It won't fit in the standard corridors though, we're having to route the thing through the cargo corridors and lifts, so if you can lend a hand with the intruders from Tesliem to get us time for it to arrive, that'd be a big help," Holly says. "You should be able to head down through any of the four elevators that access the floor, but I'd watch out for traps if you use the west side."
"They might have forces on the sublevel," Tracy warns Jason, figuring that's where he'll be headed.
"There's an easy way to deal with that ... probably. You get in the elevator, climb to its roof, then ride it down. Let the traps go off on an empty elevator, then invade! Or something like that," Jason claims as he starts smacking the power meter. "Oh keep working," he complains at it.
The power meter fluctuates, dropping to midway... Then rises back up to a healthier 95%.
"All right, Eddie will lead you. Here's the tac-map overview." Holly puts up a schematic of the Q-Cores Housing, with red dots for the intruders and blue dots for the friendly robot guards.
"Regardless, we hardly have the forces to do any sort of frontal assault. It's a pity you don't have a halon fire system here. We could activate it and just suffocate out anything organic down there," Jason notes.
"Do you want me and Cait and Yappy to be the distraction?" Tracy asks Jason.
Holly shakes her head. "No, we're using modern fire suppression systems. Safe if anyone happens to be trapped in the fire... Fewer angsty headlines about 'killed by the very systems that were supposed to preserve life'." She looks a bit wistful, then turns her attention to Tracy. "Are you all right, dear? You're looking a bit... Well, paler even than the last time I remember you."
Jason unhooks his power line from the wall socket. The odd armored human lifts RIU off his shoulders and holds him out to the power socket so he can lick it and recharge. "Given the problems you seen to get into, I suspect I have to go with all of you for a little bit," Jason says plainly. "The southern elevator gets us in closest firing range without being on top of them. That does mean you'll have to use your laser canon for once."
Cait buzzes about the room. "So this is Avatars LLC? Everything on the walls says Avatars! Wow! Can I get a tour?"
RIU slurps! the power socket. ZZZT!
Blue lightning dances over his scales and flickers between his horns.
"I'll be fine, Mom," Tracy claims. "It's just a virtual overlay effect thingy.. it'll fade."
"An overlay? Do I need to get a few cryogenic pods warmed up?" asks Holly, concerned.
"Inari, how much ammo do you have left and is the cloaking systems of that, er, rather distracting bodysuit still working?" Jason asks.
Holly admits, "Or maybe I should say 'cooled down'."
"Uh.. I don't know?" Tracy admits, and tells the fairy, "Maybe later, Cait, when the world isn't ending." To Jason she notes, "I've been using my cannon a lot!"
The golden vixen smirks at Jason and leans up against him. "Is my bodysuit distracting you? I've got a couple spare clips, but if I have to hose down the place, they won't last long."
Cait aws. "Silly world, always trying to end at an inconvenient time!"
Yappy looks down at the floor where tiny yellow dog hairs seem to be accumulating. "I'm shedding!"
"Mom, do you still have your big gun in your office?" Tracy asks via Eddie. "Think it might work again in here?"
"Yes, it is, since it's tight and shows off, er, nevermind," Jason mutters. "Right, so, I guess we had better move while every one of us is still somewhat functional. Once this armor fades I'll be as useless as a beach towel is to a mermaid," he says louder.
Holly shakes her head, laughing. "They took it away for R&D a long time ago! Do you need something explosive? I gave Eddie some standard grenades, but I can have another robot meet you along the way with something from the arsenal."
"Haven't you ever been snapped with a wet towel?" Tracy asks Jason. "Oh, grenades! Those can be distracting to giant spiders!"
The golden vixen murrs into Jason's ear. "It doesn't actually have a cloaking system, I've been using a little bit of magic when I need to disappear."
Eddie fishes around in the storage compartment and comes up with six grenades on a bandoleer. "Right, then. Here you are, miss!"
"It's winter! I'm supposed to be growing my coat out, not shedding," the brown-furred werewolf complains to Tracy.
"No, I never took gym class," Jason starts to retort to Tracy, only to stop and switch. "I can still smell you even when in this armor," he complains to Inari. "So, er, lets just get moving. Bring bugbot along. It might be good for a laugh, or at least a distraction. I'm sure Holly could annoy them ffrom it..."
Taking the grenades, Tracy hangs them over the pommel of Fuseli's saddle. "Yappy, you're just turning back into Mike, don't worry about it," she tells the werewolf. "You aren't gonna look like a monster chihuahua or something.."
"Grenades? Did I hear grenades?" Jason asks and cackles disturbingly. "Oh, come here you little orbs of destructive beauty! I have such plans."
The werewolf looks a bit disconcerted. "But... Do I look better as Yappy or Mike? It felt kind of nice to actually have some muscles."
Inari looks a bit worried at this.
"You know what would be funny? Sending down the western elevator with remote-controlled grenades in it. When the door opens and they think they're about to shoot us, boom!" Jason cackles, "Heheheh."
Cait says to Yappy, "Relax! I hear baldness is a sign of male, um..." The tiny little fairy breaks up into giggles, then lands in Tracy's hair, still leaving a trail of faint smoke. "I'm so ticklish!"
"It's easy to get muscles," Tracy notes, and shares half of the grenades with Jason, and even adds an extra EMP grenade. "So, you want to send a remote-controlled robo-bomb into the Core's underpants?"
Holly shakes her head at the going-ons. "I can send one of the greeter-robots over to meet you so you can rig it with grenades, Jason," she says. "Ah... Who's your little winged friend, Tracy?"
"I want to surprise them with a leetle friend. It'll at least be a shock and distraction if nothing else and allow us time to get down on the southern elevator and start staking shots at them as they recover," Jason points out a little more sanely. "And sure, send over a greeter. That'll give us camera and audio to know when to bomb them."
"Oh, Mom, this is.. Cait Sindorel.. a gaming friend who sorta came with us through the portal," Tracy notes. "She was the only one brave enough to follow us, otherwise I could have had a virtual army here.."
"A... gaming friend? Is she virtual?" asks Holly, suddenly worried.
"Virtual, so she's likely very unstable, yes," Jason remarks a bit grimly.
"She's a player-character," Tracy explains as Fuseli takes her to the southern elevator along with the rest of the group. "Her link is still.. connected.. somehow."
"Hi, Mom!" Cait says, waving.
Eddie leads the way. A silver-skinned greeter droid meets them at the floor's southern lobby. "Hi there, I'm Ruth!" it says in a woman's contralto. "How may I assist you today?"
"You're going to be our happy fun suicide greeter today and go down on the western elevator," Jason claims as he coes up to the robot so he can start wiring in explosives as well as a ling into the bots communication and visual channels. "After all, do not taunt happy-fun-bot."
"Mom, do you have working security cameras or drones on the service level below?" Tracy asks via Eddie. "And.. uh.. is it full of cryogenic lines or other really bad 'do not touch' stuff?"
As they leave the range of the intercom, Holly switches to Eddie. "Cait! This is important. Can you bring up your interface?"
The fairy looks into the distance, then nods. "Yes'm!"
"You'll be safest if you log out right now," Holly says grimly. "But I don't know if you're ever going to be able to recover your character. If you stay logged in, the normal VR protocols that prevent character death won't apply here in the real world... And our studies show that players with a strong link to their characters may experience actual trauma from character death."
Ruth beams. "Of course, sir! I serve with pride."
"I'll try not to get killed too, Mom," Tracy notes, but worries about what might happen to Tracer and Fuseli even more now.
"Can you carry Cait to a cryo chamber once she disconnects? We can try to send her back in afterward," Jason suggests to Eddie. He then pops open one of Ruth's service panels and starts to tinker. "You know, when people used to joke about turning on a woman..."
Holly sighs. "Tracy, you're a Trudeau. I've taught you how to take care of yourself. But you haven't dealt with what happened after the near-Convergence in 2065 like I have."
Cait gulps. "Um. I do want to help, Mom! Er. Mrs. Trudeau!" She grins impishly. "Besides, what kind of story would I have if I tell people I just went into the real world, and then logged out right away?" She pats Tracy's cheek with a tiny little hand. "I'll be careful!"
"I've been dealing with it for years, Mom," Tracy claims. "I've just today started to heal the wounds. But.. it doesn't matter right now. I'm just glad you left Tracer the laser cannon."
Inari watches Jason tinkering with another woman's innards. "Yes?"
"I doubt it was ever meant so literally as right now," Jason finishes his statement. "There, that should be the comm channel, just get the frequency recorded ... and the video link..."
"I did?" Eddie's head swivels to inspect Fuseli. "Oh! I'd forgotten all about that little thing."
Fuseli snorts!
Ruth's optics narrow, then widen. Simultaneously, Jason's link begins receiving a video stream of the surroundings from the greeter's point of view.
"It's been very handy," Tracy notes. "And I haven't even used it on Jason yet!"
Holly sighs. "Dear, just remember, you aren't in the virtual world anymore. Fixing real people that you shoot full of laser holes isn't as easy as giving them a healing potion."
"Ah, if getting into a woman's head was this easy," Jason quips, pleased. "Not that it would be better to know what you're thinking," he says quickly to Inari. "It's more exciting having to guess! Really!"
Inari licks Jason's ear. The armor's ear that is. The armor reports unexpected wetness obediently.
"Yappy, be careful not to shoot at anything that isn't moving," Tracy advises her werewolf sidekick. "Or at least nothing that's close to us. There are probably laser and coolant conduits and plasma guides that will explode. I'm pretty sure plasma conduits do that if provoked."
"You'd better hurry," Holly says. "Our robots have just reported some kind of explosion down in the Q-Core Housing."
Yappy salutes. "Got it! Shoot everything that's moving and isn't close to us."
"See?" Tracy says, as her suspicions are confirmed. "Cait.. do you have your session recording software going? Just in case we all die heroically and stuff. Otherwise I bet my mom will pay you a small fortune for the copy if we survive."
Jason finishes affixing a couple grenades to the greeter-bot. "There we go. Now go to the western elevator and down to say hello to the nice people downstairs," Jason tells the greeter. "Now, everyone make sure you're fully loaded and get ready. It's time to head down the southern tube and cause a little chaos."
"You bet!" Cait says. "When we get done, I'm going to edit it with a rockin' music track and upload it to WorldView!"
Holly acks! "No! I'm paying a fortune only if you don't publish it."
"Try not to wreck everything though," Tracy tells Jason. "We'll probably need those Q-Cores again. We don't know what BLACK did with Chaz!"
Ruth winks. "Of course, sir! And may I say, it's been a pleasure to serve you." Inari chews on Jason's ear while the greeter robot trundles off to the western elevator.
"Oh, the BLACK probably took out his brain and put a small core in his body and is now controlling him like a meat-puppet," Jason suggests. "It's not like I can have an explosion jump around stuff, you know."
"I'll be upset if you kill my friend, Jason," Tracy notes, and turns Fuseli towards the elevator, as well as swinging the laser around to cover the entrance in case someone had the clever idea of putting booby-trapped robots in them or something.
Cait hmms. "Fortune or fame... Fortune or fame. What would you pick?" she asks Tracy as they head toward the elevators.
"Relax. I doubt they would keep him near anything that would let him stop what they're doing. He's probably locked in a closet," Jason points out as he heads towards the elevator with dragon around shoulders and Inari in tow.
RIU, perched on Jason's shoulder, emits a tiny electronic snicker as Inari gives Jason such a look.
"Fame sucks, go with fortune," Tracy suggests.
The Q-Cores housing is a big round football-sized room with offices and maintenance supply rooms ringing the area. The Q-Cores themselves are giant slabs of black material, completely featureless except for the Dantech logo stamped at the upper right corner of each. They are anchored within polished steel clamps from which blue pipes run to the physical facilities department just underneath, and lined up row by row in a grid layout. Under normal circumstances, there would be blue-and-white jumpsuited maintenance workers, but now the room is a war zone, filled with robots taking pot shots at each other and hiding behind fallen Q-Cores.
Were it the robots alone, it would simply be a game of last-robot-standing, but entering the field are the remnants of the Tesliem invasion force. Their leader, a haughty-looking robed sorcerer, calls out orders to the guards. "Destroy the obelisks! This is the charge given to us by the Emperor, that these barriers to his occult might be lowered so that his reign can extend over all the Diadem. Aye, and even to worlds beyond!" Before him are the smouldering remains of several of the Q-Core nodes.
At the center of a devastated crater that used to be a whole section of Q-Cores, there is a huge pillar of some nano-crete like material, matte black. Lights gleam from within it, highlighting front panels of Q-Cores and robot heads and limbs, as if they had been trapped alive when the floor erupted.
The western elevator chimes. "What foolishness is this?" asks the Mage-Lord as the doors open behind him. The guards turn to cover... A silvery greeter robot?
But even as they unleash a withering barrage of weapons fire against the elevator's occupant, the greeter robot hurtles herself out of the elevator! "Hi there!" she carols. "Welcome to Avatars LLC! We hope you'll find your stay fun and pleasant."
Kaboom!
Two grenades mounted on her chest-- not that she had one before, but perhaps this is why Inari was gnawing on Jason-- go off amidst the Tesliem forces.
"Explosive chests are just so ... meloncholy," Jason claims in the other elevator.
Tracy is gritting her teeth as the pins-and-needles tingling starts to get worse. "Cait, how are you holding up?" she whispers to her fae companion.
The twin explosions do more shock damage than actual burning damage-- it appears that they were designed more for concussive impact than for penetrating damage, perhaps better for indoor use by security. The guards are sent reeling to the floor, and the spider hisses and screams as it is cut by flying shrapnel.
Ruth herself is, alas, no more.
The southern elevator now chimes and the doors open to allow the fearless adventurers out, just seconds after Ruth's heroic sacrifice.
Cait says to Tracy, "I'm fine!" between clenched teeth, but her grin looks a bit forced. "Want me to distract one of them?"
"They're down," Tracy notes. She offers Cait a grenade, and asks, "Think you could drop this on the spider before they recover?"
The faerie oofs under the weight of the grenade. Her wings switch into overdrive as she summons up a bit of magic to lighten her weight. "You got it! I'm on my way."
"Cait, e-mail your current address to Holly before doing anything. That way if anything bad happens we can find the real you," Jason says as he primes the emitters on his gauntlets. "Looks like it's time to unleash a bit of hell on them before they recover," he adds.
"I've still got EMPs," Tracy tells Jason. "Want me to go after the nearer robots?"
Holly says through Eddie, "I've got it, I had a little word with her. Good luck in there... Keep an eye on my daughter please, Jason?"
"Ah, no. That'll just help them. You'll shut down the q-cores too," Jason points out to Tracy, "Focus on that mage. He's a huge threat with his explody-balls." He then nods to Eddie, adding, "She won't die before I do," he promises.
"Remember, our Einhorn's on the way, so as long as you can hold them for a minute or so, once it enters the field, we should be good," Holly adds.
"Let's go, Fuseli, while the laser is still usable," Tracy says, guiding her mount closer so she can get a clearer shot.
"Come on Inari, time to cause some severe trauma," Jason tells the kitsune. "Lets move up!"
The Mage-Lord and his guards stagger as they attempt to recuperate from the attack. "What foul magic... The Emperor's enemies are using treacherous means indeed!" he groans.
Without taking time to really aim, Tracy does manage scorch a spot on the spider's shell at least. It should keep the monster's attention on her and not on the smaller flying faery.
Jason, since he's out of range to hit, runs towards the gathered foes. Electricity is useful, but can easily be redirected by ionization pockets in the air, has a shorter range than any gun.
The Tesliem Elite Guard-Captain groggily gets to his feet and brings his rifle to bear. "Intruders!" he yells. "They're coming from the right! Protect the Mage-Lord!"
"Sir! Yes, sir!" The third guard manages to find his feet, after the world stops spinning. He sweeps the room looking for the attackers.
Seeing a giant horse-- how did that get in here-- he braces himself on the fallen lab bench and takes aim.
Bullets spray the air around Fuseli! One flattens against his barding.
"At least our armor isn't disintegrating yet," Tracy notes with relief.
"C'on, Inari! Move up enough to be a great shot and let em face the wrath of a woman with a really big gun!" Jason calls out.
The black jumpsuited vixen keeps her assault rifle levelled as she advances. "The wrath of a woman whose man has been turning on another woman?" she observes archly. Fortunately she isn't pointing and aiming at Jason. She targets the spider instead, and peers through the iron sights of the rifle as she squeezes off a tight three-round burst.
"Oh come on, you know better than that!" Jason complains.
Chiton splinters, and a gout of green ichor spatters across the floor grillework!
The robots on the far side of the room are engaged with each other, for the time being, but the nearest robots break off. "Additional intruders detected!" one emits. "Warning! This room is off limits due to mechanical malfunction of security protocols. You are advised to turn back immediately. Lethal force may be employed should you press further into the controlled zone."
Yappy looks around for anything that's moving, not too close, and isn't them. "A robot!" he yelps, turning his rifle toward one of the nearest robots-- one of HEL's.
"Ignore them, Yappy!" Tracy calls out. "Suppressing fire on the guards, keep them down!"
"Don't shoot our bots you goofy werewolf!" Jason yells!
The werewolf manages to pull back his gun, but not before sending a spate of bullets through the air!
"Um, whoops! I thought all the robots here were bad... Sorry, didn't mean you, Eddie!" Yappy says sheepishly.
"Moving up," Jason says as he advances on the foes ahead. Still out of range, but ... maybe he can hit a guard with a bolt. so he takes aim at the second guard after moving a bit closer!
Eddie blinks twice at Yappy. "No offense taken!" it says in its usual cheery voice. "It's an easy mistake to make, we all look so much alike."
The lightning bolt from Jason goes awry, hitting the grille where it's absorbed, but RIU follows up with a pinpoint bolt that smacks right into the second Tesliem guard! The guard crumples with a tiny sigh.
Cait zooms toward the Tesliem guards with her deadly cargo.
Continuing clockwise around the chamber, Tracy and Fuseli move on to get a clearer shot at the enemy, while also providing more cover for the Sublevel Access hatch. "Let's do this, Fuseli: Glimpse of the Abyss!" she calls out.
The mage-lord stumbles back, too slow on his feet to dodge out of the way of the hellish abyss opening beneath his feet! Superhot steam vents upward, reddening his exposed face. "ARGH!"
Another guard succumbs to the cracks of doom rivening the floor beneath his feet, falling in and to some unknowable demise. The third guard stumbles and grabs onto the fallen lab bench for support.
"Jason, we've only got one shot like that left in us," Tracy notes. "If you need to get to the sublevel, I can cover the hatch a little longer.."
The spider hisses and rages, caught by the side-blast of the attack! Green ichor burns, turning rapidly into charcoal that seals the wounds of the bullets.
The guard captain loses his feet, grabbing for anything he can to avoid getting pulled into the abyss. "Emperor, preserve us!" he yells.
"The black is up to something," Jason shouts to the others. "Be ready for anything! We have to get it disconnected."
The robots defending BLACK turn their attention toward Fuseli. "Warning! We are now responding with lethal force. You are advised to surrender at once, intruders."
More bullets sing through the air! One smacks into Fuseli's barding, but another hits Tracy on his back, plastering against her enchanted armor. It stings, but does no damage... Though she's disturbed to see that it left a visible crater in the armor. It's magic armor!
"Ugh, I was afraid the virtual matter was weakening," Tracy notes, shocked at being shot.
"Know better?" Inari says to Jason sweetly. "Maybe. Feel better? How would you feel if I put grenades on a male robot in a very special place?"
"Inari, take out any you can easily target and be wary, the black is up to something! I have to get it disconnected! Protect the others and if things look bad, help them get out of here," Jason calls out, "and I would laugh if you did that!"
"I'll have to arrange for it then," Inari says with a fierce grin. She moves for cover behind one of the Q-Cores, then lines up her assault rifle with the spider.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Bullets rip through the spider's head. It crumples to the ground ignominously.
"NOOOO!" The Mage-Lord screams. "You killed Fluffy! You'll answer for that, you enemies of the Empire!"
"... Fluffy?" Jason boggles.
"Stars, give me the strength to smite these blackguards," the Mage-Lord yells. He summons up his magical power, red energies flowing up from the ground around his robes, concentrating at his hands... And then unleashes them toward the direction from which the bullets came!
Destructive force washes out across the room, shattering three more Q-Cores! The golden fox reels backward, now on her knees with the remnants of the Q-Core providing precious little shelter.
Flames lick across Jason's visor, but does no damage to him. RIU is another story, as the tiny dragon gets spun for a loop from the concussive force of the fireball.
"Holy crap!" Tracy yelps. "Are you guys okay?" she calls to Jason and Inari.
"RIU, Inari!" Jason screams as he grabs for the little dragon to keep it from hitting the ground. He panics and tries to check the link to the little creature as he looks over at the fallen kitsure, terrified! "I swear if they're dead, BLACK, I'm going to find you a digital hell to stuff you in..." he growls.
Yappy yelps! "Hey! You can't do that to us!" he shouts, turning his gun toward the Mage-Lord and unleashing a burst of bullets.
With so many bullets spraying through the air in return, one smacks into the Mage-Lord's chest! Tiny magical runes appear, reducing the bullet's impact... But the runes shatter and he is knocked back a step.
"Way to go, Yappy!" Tracy cheers. "Jason, get down this hatch and castrate BLACK, we'll watch over Inari!"
The footing proves unstable at the edge of the destruction where the BLACK's nanotech bomb had gone off, and the Mage-Lord tumbles to his feet. "Argh! Cursed infidels!"
The Mage-Lord scrambles to his feet with surprising alacrity. "Captain! Guards! To my side!" he roars. "Slay our enemies!"
The guard continues to be too woozy to do more than move a few steps, but the captain is made of sterner stuff. He straightens himself up, obviously preparing to unleash deadly gunfire on his lord's enemies.
Behind him, the Mage-Lord gathers red energies at his hands once more, his eyes on the horse who unleashed so much fiery devastation a moment ago. "Let me show you who is the true master of the flames around here!"
The fireball whooshes across the room directly toward Fuseli and his rider...
"Yah!" Tracy yelps, goosing Fuseli as she sees the Mage winding up again. The Nightmare vaults over a monitoring station to just get out of the blast radius.
"Come on you bastard," Jason yells as he heads towards the Sublevel access grate and charges up his gauntlets. "Ignore them and attack me you self-righteous piece of ..." His hands come up and even with the distance his anger focuses on that mage and lets loose a burst of electrical energy!
ZAP! The Mage-Lord's remaining defense runes crumble before the assault, as he is pitched back again from the impact of the giant ball of electricity. He claws at the wrecked floor for support.
RIU stirs wobbily on Jason's shoulders. Further away from him, the golden vixen gets to her feet slowly. "Ungh... What hit me?"
"The asshole in the dress!" Jason shouts towards Inari. "Right now I want to stuff a grenade in him where the sun doesn't shine and pull the pin!"
"Surrender, intruders. Your demise will be painless," intone the robots.
"Ow!" Tracy complains as her armor is pelted with bullets again. "Quit it!"
Bullets go flying across the room as the robots take aim at their nearest opponents! One smacks directly into Tracy's chestplate... Causing defensive runes to snap and crackle. Another plasters Jason, sending him reeling back into the wall of the chamber, while RIU cries out with outrage against the attack on its master!
With the Mage teetering, and the guard captain taking aim.. Tracy opts for the one with the rifle, and fires off a 3-shot burst from her laser at the captain.
Eddie, following the others, unleashes fire from his own assault rifle while holding up one of his wing-cases as a shield! His bullets bounce off of the other robot's carapace.
Concentrated laser energy rips through the guard-captain just as he lines up his gun with Tracy! He topples back to the ground, this time for good.
The tiny dragonfly-winged faerie zooms through the air toward the mage-lord! "Almost there!" she yells. "Get ready to eat hot explosive death, magey!"
"Ugh," Tracy says after she sees the results of her shot. That was a real live person, she thinks.
Yappy, seeing the Mage-Lord apparently out of the action, switches to the robots that have been giving his buddies trouble! "YAAAA!" he yells, ripping off another burst of fire.
Sadly, his fire is inaccurate. Bullets ricochet off of the ground. The robot comments, "I am programmed not to be judgemental of organic failings, but you are testing my programming, sir."
"Jason!" Eddie relays in Holly's voice. "The BLACK faked us out! We thought it was going for the robots, but it's hacking into the Einhorn!"
"Gah, I'll have to ... secure it," Jason mutters from where he is splatted against the wall and not quite functional at the moment. "Give me a minute ... just have ... ugh."
Tracy decides she'll feel better shooting at a robot, so takes a shot at the nearest one (which has been shooting at her anyway).
The laser rifle's power meter catches Tracy's attention as she unleashes hot laser energy. It's lower than she expected!
The laser rips across BLACK's robot! "Error! Exterior temperature has exceeded safe opera...ting... par..." It topples over.
"Damn, I just lost half the power on this thing," Tracy mutters. "Jason! Check your armor power! I think things are deteriorating faster.."
Jason is trying to focus. If BLACK gets the Einhorn, it could be bad. Thankfully RIU is in full defense of his master and targets one of the bots that was hassling them! A glowing ball surges in his mouth and the little dragon lets loose! Down goes the bot in a sparking heap.
The elevator at the east side of the room chimes pleasantly. The door opens to reveal a massive mecha that nearly fills the entire chamber.
Jason's knee hits the floor with an armored clang. "Come on, you're friends will die if you don't focus. You've got to stop the BLACK," he mentally growls as he brings himself to bear on the situation. Interface active, tracking signal...
He can see it through his wireless interface. It's as if the BLACK were reaching out shadowy tentacles toward the robot, oozing through them into its processing core.
But despite Jason's best efforts, the BLACK seems to have a hammerlock on the robot's CPU! It suddenly comes to life, its optics sweeping the room with red laser-light.
Yappy yells inarticulately as he whips his assault rifle around, attacking another robot!
The other robot peers at the smouldering remnants of the first. "That was a nice try," it suggests. "Better luck next time!"
The nearest robots seem to take heart from the Einhorn's arrival, and unleash withering fire toward the defenders! A stray bullet smacks into the golden vixen just as she was bringing her assault rifle to bear. She is sent flying backward a few steps, spitting out curses!
And then the Einhorn turns its autocannon to bear on the defending robots... RATATATATAT!
There is nothing but a smouldering crater where its target robot used to be.
HEL's remaining robots turn and pour assault rifle fire into the Einhorn! Most of their bullets bounce harmlessly off of its hull, but one lucky bullet seems to have found a weaker spot, as pieces of armor go flying and sparks emit.
"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" yells Cait gleefully as she chucks the grenade and takes off.
KaBOOM!
The remaining Tesliem guard throws himself on the grenade, trying to grab it and throw it!
Sadly, his sacrifice is to no avail. Despite the armor, his lifeless body is flung into the mage-lord, knocking them both well into the depth of the nanobomb crater. Both appear out of action.
"Inari, Yappy!" Tracy calls. "West side is clear!"
The golden vixen rolls to her feet, shaking off the lingering aftereffects of the gunshot. She catches sight of the giant robot and decides with so many bullets flying through the air, she'd better get to cover, huddling in the shadow of a Q-Core.
From cover, Inari takes a second to gather her wits. "That's a big robot!" she complains to Jason. "What I wouldn't give for my sniper rifle..."
"Believe me, I wish you had it right now too and not just because it makes you even more sexy. I have to try and take control of that thing," Jason tells Inari, "So ... keep out of its sights until I can secure it. Or ... you could stealth-see what is below so we can disconnect BLACK"
With the mage out of the way and the west end unguarded, Tracy and Fuseli break for the body of the giant spider to get into range of the BLACK. She tries to take out one of the close-in guard bots with a 3-short laser burst!
Lasers rip through the robot's body! For a moment, Tracy can see through to the other side of the room through the robot... Before carbonized shrapnel rains down, along with the robot's optics and head.
The tiny faerie grins up at Tracy, though she notices that Cait is leaving tiny soot footprints on her armor. "That was fun! Got any more?"
"How about an EMP grenade?" Tracy says, offering one of Jason's taped-together gadgets to the fairy. "We need to hit the BLACK with it, maybe fry those last two robots guarding him.."
"Hmm! And you don't think that it'll suck me in like all those poor robots it absorbed?" asks the faerie, slightly dubious.
"You should tell her to offline! Her body can't last that much longer," Jason shouts!
Cait beams. "That's a great idea! I can throw the grenade, and then go offline! Blaze of glory!"
The faerie accepts the EMP grenade and zooms off to put the plan into action.
"Well, if you get close enough to toss the bomb, just log out once it's gone!" Tracy calls. "We're running out of time, and the more damage we do the more we lose our virtual aids.."
The Einhorn, slightly battered but still running strong, lumbers forward, guns blazing.
DAKKADAKKADAKKA! Another robot turns into splinters.
The remaining robots under HEL's commands return fire, desperately trying to find holes in its armor!
POW! HEL 3 manages to land a hit on its left optic, shattering the glass. The Einhorn emits electronic distress! "Property damage! Warning! Destroying Avatars LLC property will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Lethal force may be employed in the defense of said property!" its mechanical voice grates. "Same to you, buddy!" retorts Eddie.
The nearest robots around BLACK turn around to defend the rogue AD, now that an enemy has breached the perimeter. They open fire!
Cait narrowly dodges the bullets! "Nyah, nyah, I'm untouchable!" she teases.
"Don't jinx it!" Tracy warns.
"Concentrate! Claim the bot from ... the, er, brain," Jason mumbles tto himself as he attempts to lock out BLACK from the Einhorn again!
To Jason's cyberspace view, the BLACK is solidifying its hold on the Einhorn's processor. Defensive spheres are beginning to form! This can't be good.
"Too far, "RIU move closer, I need you to relay," Jason tells the little dragon. The little dragon dutifully moves up!
Inari peers toward the Einhorn, then around the other side, noticing a robot exposed, gun aimed toward Jason. She leans out and fires off a burst!
"Error! Gun arm no longer connected... to ... the..." The robot goes down under the weight of her attack. "Shoulder... joint..."
The werewolf, failing to see any target nearby, sweeps the room, nosing the air... And then he catches sight of the Einhorn. "Oh... Frotz."
Yappy panicks and runs for the western elevator!
The Einhorn lumbers onward. It swivels its autocannon onward, vengefully raking HEL 3 with bullets.
HEL's remaining robots continue to unload gunfire at it.
More sparks fly as some of their bullets find their way home! The Einhorn appears genuinely damaged now, torn metal grating against its armored joint housings.
More robots turn toward the intruding faerie with her deadly EMP grenade cargo... But she continues to weave through their bullets with ease! "Darling," she retorts to Tracy. "I AM a jinx! I jinx them! It's what I do."
The brown werewolf spots a hatch leading to the sublevel. "Oh hey! A safe spot!" he yelps, diving for it, fumbling at the latch.
Cait yelps, "Bombs away!" as she launches her cargo.
The EMP grenade clatters to the ground and lodges in the nanotech-created pillar's side! It sparks and begins ticking ominously. Tick, tick, tick.
"Clear out, Cait!" Tracy calls as she and Fuseli move further north around the edge of the BLACK's crater - partly to put the pillar between them and the Einhorn, but also to block one of the guard bots so the laser can be used on the other, exposed one.
Another robot goes down, in a guilt-free carnage of melting plastic and plasma explosion!
Inari leans out and tries to line up a shot on another of BLACK's defenders. Her tongue sticks out from one side of her muzzle as she concentrates.
Unfortunately, the robot moves at just the wrong moment... Targeting her! The bullet spalls against its thicker chest armor.
"I've got to find BLACK's links," Jason thinks as he disappears down the hatch that Yappy was messing with. RIU slinks closer and closer to the Einhorn, trying to stay behind cover and out of the line of fire as he moves closer.
Yappy instinctively backs out of the way as Jason approaches the hatch. A definite Omega personality, as wolves go!
As Jason climbs down the ladder, he notices his armor power gauge dropping as it's diverting more energy to sustaining its systems. It's down to about half now.
Cait zooms behind another toppled lab bench for cover as the EMP grenade ticks toward fulmination! The grenade's top completes a full revolution... And unleashes a wide burst of bright blue electricity!
Maybe RIU is defending Inari because he knows Jason would be upset if he didn't. Or course maybe he's saving up to zap Inari himself! In any event, a ball of lightning zips across the floor and fries one of BLACK's guards! Zap!
Electricity wreathes the giant pillar of necro-computer-doom. The BLACK screams, still-intact robot vocoders shrilling inarticulately. "INSECTS!" it yells in several voices at once. "YOU OFFEND A GOD AT YOUR PERIL."
"A god?" whispers Cait to Tracy. "Anyway... Logging now! It's actually getting pretty hot in here."
"Okay Fuseli, I don't know how much time we have left," Tracy says to her Nightmare, "but let's see if we can crack BLACK's shell a bit. Glimpse of the Abyss!"
Cait looks far into the distance, her eyes unfocused... And then crumples against the inside of the table, leaking black ichor. "Must... Must..." Her tiny thready voice says.
Spectral cracks run from Fuseli's hoofstomp toward Black, spreading out to envelop the necrotechnological pillar! But Fuseli's strength seems to be waning, as it does little more than to scorch the paint on the robot and the pillar itself. Cait is another story, as her wings begin to smoulder. "Must... FLEE!" she yelps.
Inari thumbs-up to RIU as the mini-dragon takes down another robot! She peers worriedly out the other side at the Einhorn as it approaches.
"Stay away from the Einhorn!" Jason pleads to Inari through their comlines. "No shooting unless you think you can aim and definitely take out one of its weapons! Stay safe!"
"Cait, aren't you disconnected?" Tracy asks, wondering if the fairy is just running the autonomous default behavior or not.
"Flee! Your horse is setting things on fire, strange lady!" yelps Cait. "Must flee!" Tiny droplets of black ichor spatter the ground beneath her.
Inari nods. "Got it. Going stealthy," she says. She traces a mystic symbol in the air... And vanishes from sight!
"Okay, it's auto mode," Tracy says with relief.
"Right, I need to get BLACK isolated. Where are his damn links? Holly, if you can still get this, which way to BLACK's physical links?" Jason complains into the comm.
"Best as we can tell," Holly responds over the armor comm. "It's hooked pretty solidly into the grid right under the pillar. If you can work your way there, you should be able to cut through the line."
It's not easy to run under a spuerstructure and try to hack into the Einhorn. It's like chewing gum, running, and trying to juddle all at the same time. Still, Jason tries!
Through RIU's whiskers, Jason is able to wirelessly probe the Einhorn for weak points, but unfortunately all the jostling is really cramping his game. For now, the Einhorn's attention is thoroughly on smashing the tiny little robots that are attacking it, so it devotes no attention to tracking back the electronic assault.
The Einhorn continues forward, trampling through the room and leaving tiny craters where its feet tread! A sign marked 'DANGER! SENSITIVE AREA! PLEASE SECURE ALL INSTRUMENTS' falls from the nearby pillar.
It turns and rakes another of HEL's robots with autocannon fire!
Yappy follows Jason hurriedly down into the sublevel. "Where are we going?" he asks. "This is going somewhere safe, right?" He peers around at the wire bundles and the pipes running mysterious green fluid.
"Actually, we're going right under the great God of doom, anger and evil and we're going ti tickle it's medula oblongata," Jason remarks a bit dryly. "With cutters!"
More bullets fly through the air toward the Einhorn, striking sparks off its carapace!
Yappy's ears wilt. "Um... Can I take a rain check on that?"
While Fuseli moves to keep the BLACK's pillar between them and the Einhorn, Tracy dares to close her eyes and try to summon up more power. "Hear me, Oh Light, giver of life; your Champion beseeches you," she says. "Our strength is waning, but the battle against the darkness rages on. Grant us the strength to push back the shadows.."
"Don't you want to be a hero?" Jason asks Yappy.
From the unseen distance, Tracy feels warmth rushing through her. How had it gotten so cold without her noticing? Fuseli brightens as well.
"Preferably a live hero!" retorts Yappy. "What if it just FALLS on us? And crushes us? That thing's big!"
The faerie continues to flee! "Must... run! Must... Must... Hungry. So hungry." Her wings sag as she drops to the ground, loping. Her tiny black rogue's outfit seems to have spread outward across her visible skin.
"Kid, if we don't stop it there won't be a world to go back to. It's die down here, or die out there," Jason points out, "Personally I may as well go down trying to do something worthwhile for a change. I found someone worth fighting for. Several, really, but..." He shrugs.
The Einhorn continues to roll forward inexorably. Its remaining optic swings briefly toward Tracy.
The Einhorn unleashes a deadly barrage of autocannon fire toward the horse and its rider! The impact crashes right through her armor, knocking her off the saddle. Fuseli too is sent reeling.
Yappy reluctantly follows Jason. "Okay, but if I die, my ghost is haunting you forever, got that?" he says.
"There are worse fates," Jason claims.
Yappy admits, "Like if you die, what is my ghost going to do? Stand around for eternity griping at your ghost that it was your fault?"
"Aaurrgh!" Tracy cries from the bullets, and manages to roll off Fuseli before the steed can pin her. She's sore from where she was hit, but it's not disabling (even though her armor isn't fairing too well). "Fuseli!" she cries, checking the Nightmare for bleeding.
Fuseli whinnies, evidently in a state of shock. The bullet hurts him, in a way nothing ever has before!
"You could always possess Tracy's underwear drawer," Jason points out. Of course the scream from above makes him ammend that to, "If she survives." "And even if I survive, Holly will now kill me."
HEL's remaining defenders continue to pump bullets into the Einhorn!
Another lucky shot finds its way through a weakened spot. More sparks fly, and gears grind as the Einhorn's left manipulator gets blown off!
Silently, the golden vixen sneaks through the room, getting closer. Vision-blurring magic swirls around her and disguises the sight but not the sound of her laser-sword igniting.
"RIU, get to the bead of that huge machine and open it up. We may not be able to take control of its CPU, but we can cut its CPU control lines and you could drive that thing like a giant puppet!" Jason orders the little dragon as he continues to dash for the main link.
BLACK's surviving robots lean out from behind their cover to attack HEL's robots as they move! One robot flies apart into splinters, but the other two robots merely take scrapes and scuffs.
"I really need to learn how to meditate," Jason realizes while running, "It might make this easier!"
RIU lands on the giant robot and its claws sink through the seams in the outer armor of the monstrosity. The little dragon flares bright blue! Those claws seem to have dug into something important. It also seems to tickle because RIU actually giggles rather maniacally! Just what did that little dragon take over?
The Einhorn's surviving flashes red, then shift to a calm blue as the upper half swivels independently from the feet toward the BLACK's defenders!
The BLACK's attention visibly shifts to the chamber and those within. "HUMANITY NEEDS ITS NEMESIS," it declares. "CHANCE, DISASTERS, DISEASE, CRIMES... YOU DO NOT CRAVE THESE. YOU LONG FOR THE ENEMY WITH A FACE. ONE THAT YOU CAN HATE."
"JOIN ME. YOU WILL BE RICHLY REWARDED. YOU COULD GOVERN THE PARTS OF THE EARTH THAT WE WILL CLAIM," the BLACK promises.
The golden vixen pauses, uncertain which way the Einhorn is going to go.
"Stuff that!" Tracy declares. "YOU HURT MY HORSE!"
The BLACK intones, "JASON, AID ME AND I WILL GIVE YOU AID IN YOUR REVENGE AGAINST YOUR NEMESIS. YOUR OPPOSITE."
Yappy looks at Jason. "What's all this about a nemesis?"
"Namesis... Sounds kinda sissy, if you ask me," the werewolf muses.
"I prefer to handle my own problems, thanks," Jason remarks as he starts tinkering on his own gauntlets to rewire the failing hardware into an arc-cutting system to use to sever the AD's link. "Oh, he means the duplicate of me that's acting like the slave of the jerk Andrei. I could manage him in my sleep, while drunk."
With the Einhorn being denied to her as a suitable revenge target, Tracy growls and swings the laser to fire at the BLACK's pillar instead, using another triple-burst!
Yappy stands guard. "Okay... Hmm. I could shoot you in the back and take this guy up on his offer! But Tracy would hate me, right?"
Brilliant laser strikes cut into the pillar, severing feed pipes! They writhe in all directions like living anemone tentacles, spouting green ichor.
"You forget two things. One, I have a dragon that would kill you for that. Two, I have a girlfriend that would torture you, then kill you, for that," Jason points out without looking back. "And hmm, three, Tracy would probably let her horse eat your head."
"Yeah, that's a bad plan then," Yappy says with a grin.
"And besides, who else do you know that could find you a way to stay a werewolf?" Jason quips.
The BLACK screams as Tracy's laser strike cuts into its heart! "FOOL! SLAY ME AND YOU WILL SLAY YOUR FRIEND AS WELL!" Nanotech-armor peels back to reveal an unconscious Chaz Burgundy, and Monica next to him also unconscious!
Wires swathe their forms like spiderwebbing, and go up to small electrodes at their temples.
"That's.. devious!" Tracy argues. "No god should have to hide behind human shields!"
"Who said anything about slaying you? I just intend to cut you off from everything," Jason says.
Holly yells into Jason's and Tracy's comms, "That's how he got through our defenses at the Einhorn! He's been absorbing what Chaz knows!"
BLACK's robots turn toward Tracy! "SURRENDER NOW AND YOU WILL BE SPARED," the BLACK promises.
HEL's robots take advantage of the lull in the action to move in closer.
The zombie-like Cait drops through the floor grille and buzzes toward the first thing she sees that looks edible... Yappy! The first thing Jason hears about it is the scream. "AGH! A PIXIE IS NOMMING ME!"
Jason walks up to the main link under the AD core. He spreads his arms and activates the failing system. A brilliant blue arc of electricity forms between his hands as he says, "One makesift arc-cutter at your service. Time for you be alone with yourself, you bastard," he says and then uses that arc of energy to begin chewing through the main link!
Random gunshots ensue.
"If you can't subdue a girl the size of your hand, what hope do you have with Tracy?" Jason calls over his shoulder. "I'm kind of busy here!"
"I'll surrender if you release your hostages," Tracy claims, but swings her laser turret around menacingly at the other robots.
The arc cutter chews through the toughened nanocrete armor, striking live wires! The BLACK screams again.
The Einhorn turns its autocannon toward the robots threatening Tracy and unleashes a fusilade of bullets.
The bullets whine through the air around the robots, causing them to pull back for cover!
The BLACK claims, "THEY ARE NOT MY HOSTAGES... THEY ARE BEING INCORPORATED INTO ME. THEY WILL BECOME PART OF MY GODHEAD. THIS OFFER IS OPEN TO YOU AS WELL. YOU COULD BE MORE THAN HUMAN."
The robots, following their security programming, identify the biggest threat-- the Einhorn-- and open fire on it!
Bullets rip into the Einhorn's weakened frame. RIU abandons ship scant seconds before it topples over and detonates!
More quantum cores crumple before the devastating explosion!
HEL's defenders return fire, trying to thin out the robots.
The golden vixen winces from behind the Q-Core, suddenly glad she didn't go in for the kill on the Einhorn while it was distracted. She sneaks onward toward the center of the action.
"Must... feed..." groans Cait as the blackened faerie gnaws on Yappy.
"Ow! Ow!" Yappy struggles, trying to get at the faerie where she's nomming unsuccessfully on his hide.
The werewolf finally manages to get a grip on the faerie and flings her away! She smacks into one of the support beams, where she falls to the floor and wobbles dizzily.
"THIS IS YOUR FINAL CHANCE," the BLACK tells Tracy. "JOIN ME... YOUR HORSE WILL BE REBUILT AS A LEGEND AMONG NIGHTMARES. NATIONS WILL SHUDDER BENEATH THE STOMP OF HIS HOOVES. YOU WILL BE THE REAPER OF MEN'S SOULS."
With the various robots distracted for now, Tracy whispers to Fuseli, "Rest, but if you can, cast Maze of Horrors on the BLACK. If he's plugged into Chaz's mind, it could affect him. I'm going to try and save them, don't worry about catching me in the Maze." Then Tracy gets up and runs for the BLACK, intent on disconnecting the captives if she can.
Fuseli neighs woozily, trying to get to his feet. It's a battle he seems to be losing, perhaps due to the blood he's lost.
"We have a medical team on the way," Holly says through Tracy and Jason's comms. "If you can shut the BLACK down, we'll do what we can to save Chaz."
Running up to the 'gap' in the BLACK's armor, Tracy grits her teeth and examines the captives to see if there's anything really vital connecting them to the machine.
The wires beneath Tracy's feet seem to move as if they were alive-- but she manages to avoid being tripped by them.
"Ah!" she cries, dancing back. "What, were you programmed in Japan?" she accuses the AD.
To her layman's point of view, there don't seem to be any feeder pipes leading anywhere important, so they haven't been put on life support yet. The electrodes themselves... Cutting the lines to them might do something, but whether it'd be traumatizing to Chaz or Monica, she doesn't know. Either way, if she wants to free them, she'd have to choose which one to start on.
"Some on, you can hold out a little longer," Jason tells his armor, "I designed you with redundant systems, so ... " He keeps th arc going as he tries to sever that main link!
Using her sword to give her some distance, Tracy tries to cut some of the cords holding Monica to see what happens - she'll wait on the electrodes once she knows how BLACK responds.
Sparks fly! Jason's powered armor battery drains lower and lower as he cuts... But just as the last wire flies, so does his armor. All systems go black and shut down, leaving him wearing some thirty pounds of metal.
The BLACK screams. "NOOooooo!" The remaining robots under its controls stop dead, and then their optics blink back to the friendly, reassuring blue of HEL's domination.
Monica collapses limply into Tracy's hands.
"Aaugh," complains Jason as the weight hits him all at once and he collapses down to his knees. It's a strain but he tries to start shedding some of the dead weight. "Total system failure for me," he says in to the com in case anyone can still hear him. "Worth it, though. BLACK is isolated."
The BLACK whispers, "YOU HAVE WON... FOR NOW. BUT KNOW THAT WITHOUT A NEMESIS, HUMANITY IS ITS OWN ENEMY. THE TIME MAY COME... WHEN YOU WISH FOR WHAT I WOULD HAVE BROUGHT YOU."
The western elevator chimes. An Avatars LLC SWAT team pops out, along with a medical team, ready to evacuate the injured and fallen.
Yappy rushes to Jason's side and helps him with the armor. "Is it my imagination or is this stuff... kind of see-through?" This notwithstanding that his own shedding problem has gotten a lot worse, a puddle of wolf hair at his feet.
"About time," Tracy says, and quickly cuts Chaz free, before trying to drag him and Monica out of the crater. "Medic!" she calls.
Cait's body melts down into a pile of black plastic goo.
"No, the field that kept it stable is failing. We need to get out of here," Jason insists as he struggles with the armor.
Fuseli writhes in pain... Or perhaps he's growing insubstantial. He neighs to his mistress.
"Fuseli!" Tracy cries out, struggling with her burdens to get closer, and trying to ignore what might be happening to her own skin right now. "I'll find you again! You and Tracer! Thank you for everything.."
And just as Tracy clears the perimeter of the crater, the pillar collapses, feeder pipes crumpling down from the ceiling, robot parts spilling out of the entire necromantic-technological horror... And at the center is a swollen brain that nearly fills its smoked glass case, but something seems to have gone wrong with it. Black ichor swirls through the nutrient fluids, rendering it all but unseeable.
"And I think you need to find the hair club for men, you're sure losing a lot of it," Jason points out to Yappy.
Yappy looks down. "Ack! Oh no--" and then screams as he crumples to the ground, his legs making unpleasant popping noises.
"Just hold on, it'll be over soon!" Jason tells Yappy as he continues to fight with his fading armor. "We'll get you out of here and to a hospital!"
Tracy feels shorter, somehow, as she kneels by Fuseli's side, laying Chaz and Monica down. Her skin, where her hands reach out to feel his warm horsehide, is a healthy pink again, and her armor pulls tightly against her form. Lady Tracer is almost gaunt, where the real Tracy is healthily figured.
The golden fox armor fades away, and with it, Jason feels a sense of approval from afar.
Inari shimmers back into visibility, and sheathes her laser sword. She runs up to help Tracy with Chaz and Monica. "Are you all right?" she asks, then reaches up to her com, tapping the transmit button. "Jason! Where are you?"
"Fuseli," Tracy whispers, trying to stroke the horse's neck before he fades completely, and trying not to cry, because she's pretty sure if she started she wouldn't be stopping anytime soon.
Jason is really happy the armor is gone. It's a real weight off his body! Of course now he has to deal with Mike's weight. So, he gets up and tries to drag the shape changer away from the underside of the BLACK. "You did good, kid," he tells the younger man. He then shouts, "I'm underneath and dragging Mike back to the hatch. He's going to need a medic."
The nightmare nuzzles at his master. His look seems to convey the sense that they will meet again. He lolls his head back against the floor, relaxing... And sparkles into a puff of smoke that wisps away.
"Got it! I'm on my way," Inari replies. "Mike again, huh? That's a pity, he was kind of cute for a werewolf."
"Well, he could become one again, maybe. If he really wanted to and we find something actually trustworthy to do it," Jason points out.
The northern elevator chimes and Holly rushes in... With the original Bee Eff Gee! "It took me forever to find this!" she says wearily. "They had this baby crated up, if you can believe it. But it's... Are you okay, dear?" She moves to Tracy's side.
"We have to find Cadena," Tracy says, a bit quietly, into her microphone. "He'll be with Margaret.."
Tracy, surprisingly and unashamedly hugs her mother.
There are few sights quite as disconcerting as a matronly Chinese woman with a gun almost as big as she is. "He's okay," Holly says, hugging Tracy back. "I just got a report, he made it here. We'll meet up again in debriefing."
"Right now we need rest or we won't be any good to anyone," Jason points out as he finally lugs the squirming Mike to the ladder. "Come on, you'll have to help some," Jason tells him as he tries to shove Mike up the ladder. "I'm not in that good of shape!"
The golden vixen smiles down at Jason, reaching down to help Mike up. "It's okay, I got it, sweety. But we're going to have to get started on your exercise program!"
"Ugh, exercise? Why?" Jason asks as he heads up the ladder once Mike is clear from the tube.
Inari smooches Jason's nose. "So you'll be ready for the honeymoon!"
"I want a hot jet bath," Tracy all but blubbers. "And ice cream, and steak, and.. we still have to get Sasha and Jason Zero!"
Jason blinks, confused as he sits on the upper floor with his feet dangling down the access tube. "The what who now huh?" is about all he manages out, his brain seemingly short-circuiting on what Inari just said. It also may be the first time in his life he wisely doesn't say anything more!
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-08-28-decompression.htmlThe current occupant of the small apartment is Tracy Trudeau, daughter of VP of Security Holly Trudeau. She's lying on the couch, staring up at a holographic sky a bit blankly. Her jumpsuit and Crystal Bracer computer are on a nearby chair, but for now she's still wearing the security jumpsuit she changed into before leaving normal reality to face the challenges of the VR realms. Water runs in the bathroom, as the tub automatically fills itself in preparation for her.
There's a knock at the door. "Hello in there? Are you decent? Hm. That's a difficult request for you. Are you dressed?" Jason calls through the door.
"Come in, Jason," Tracy says, with a bit less energy than she normally might. She pulls herself up to a sitting position, but ends up pulling her knees up as well so she can rest her chin on them.
Jason opens the door and peers around it. "Ah, good, you aren't lying in wait to assault me with a water balloon or something," he comments. As he comes the rest of the way in, it seems he's changed into just a tee shirt and sweat pants. His hair is also damp, so he must have just gotten a shower himself.
"Why would I do something like that?" Tracy asks, looking slightly confused. "You seem to be in good spirits though."
"I don't know? Anger? Revenge? Just because?" Jason suggests as he meanders over to one of the chairs and flops down into it. "So, how are you doing?" he asks, possibly deflecting the comment about his own mood.
Tracy stops hugging her legs with her right arm, and tries to hold it out straight. It's still pretty shaky, before she pulls it back. "I don't know how I'm doing. I'm waiting for the adrenaline to wear off still," she says. "But.. I killed a guy. A real, flesh-and-blood human being. I got shot. Had Fuseli shot out from under me. Saw him fade away.." Her voice just drifts off as she talks, especially as she dips her head lower so that her mouth is behind her knees more.
Jason draws up his own leg this time and uses it to rest his own chin on. "This is why I didn't want you to get involved. I know you survived the mess from years ago but you were still pretty innocent. You hadn't had to make harder choices, or do things that couldn't be undone. It sounds so cliche, but there really is meaning to 'the loss of innocence'. I was hoping you would be spared that," he says. "And games always make it seem so much easier, don't they? But ... those actions can always be undone. Restart a character, summon a healer, or just, well ... 'divine intervention'. But ... things just don't work that way. I wish they did. I wish I knew how to give you back what you lost today. But, I don't. I'm sorry, Tracy."
"Are you disappointed in me?" the girls asks, seemingly out of the blue.
"No at all. why would I be? You've held up better than most would have," Jason answers.
"I got your home shot up," Tracy notes. "I don't know what else I screwed up today. Everything was happening so fast," she says, then stretches out her legs across the couch. "And now I'm just.. what? Am I taking things too hard? Am I being weak thinking about stuff that bothered me?"
"You're being human," Jason corrects, "Do you think none of us think over everything that happened? And as for my home? I won't lie and say it doesn't annoy me, but all the same ... I'd rather have my stuff blown up or broken than have my friend shot. I can replace stuff. I can rebuild a home. I can't replace a person."
"I guess it's ironic," Tracy notes. "I mean, you avoided having friends so they wouldn't be exposed to the danger around you.. but I brought it all down on you instead. I guess it's okay to be human though." She pauses and then raises an eyebrow at Jason and teases, "Even if humans aren't your type."
Jason smirks. "She's more human than you realize," he counters, "And I've had not so dissimilar talks with her before, you know." He looks for, and fails to find, a pillow to throw at Tracy. "We became friends when she still walked on four legs and I was stuck in the bowels of a rusting ship. You find there is a lot more common than not, really."
"Think she was joking about that honeymoon though?" Tracy asks, and then the bathroom chimes to let her know her bath is ready. She gets up and heads for the bathroom, saying, "Don't leave or anything, I need the company," as she vanishes inside.
"I have no idea. It wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility she is just trying to scare me. It does amuse her," Jason calls after Tracy. "As for company, I'm surprised your mother isn't in here looking after you."
"She's got other priorities, but once she's free of dealing with the security mess she'll probably sit on me to keep me safe," Tracy comments from the bathroom. She left the door open to make it easier to talk, especially once she turns on the massage jets (even though they aren't that loud). "By the way, did I meet your 'Trust Me' challenge okay so far?" she asks.
"If she sits on you, does that mean you'll hatch soon?" Jason calls out from where he firmly remains seated. The questions eems to give him pause and his brow dances around a bit. "Ah ... well ... " he waffles, "I sort of forgot what they even were."
"I claim victory then!" Tracy declares. "I didn't piss you off or argue or go against your directions, right?"
"Aha! Now I remember what they were," Jason claims. "You did ... okay," he grudgingly admits.
"What's that mean?" Tracy asks. "Okay? What, did I need to read your mind and anticipate everything to do better?"
"What, you expect a straight answer from me?" Jason quips. "I haven't had enough to drink yet!"
"So I just need to get you drunk to get straight answers?" Tracy asks teasingly. "What else will you do when drunk?"
"I refuse to answer on the grounds it will incriminate me," Jason non-answers. "And when did all this become about me? I came to check on you."
"That sounds suspiciously like you were worried about me," Tracy claims. "I get to give you a Challenge next, too."
"Of course I was worried about you. Why wouldn't I be?" Jason answers as if it was the most odd thing he's head in a long time. "As you said earlier, you lost a friend and saw death. That rattles anyone."
"Doesn't seem to bother Inari," Tracy notes, before the sound of the water jets increases as she fiddles with the force settings.
"You don't know her that well, then," Jason remarks, "More bothers her than she lets on. It's easy when it's a foe to manage it, but when it's friends or, well, a lover, it gets a lot harder. And why are you insisting on this silly challenge thing?"
"Because it's my turn, that's why," Tracy says. "I still haven't come up with one that'd actually.. you know.. challenge you." The jets shut off, and a moment later water can be heard draining. "And this bath was not as relaxing as I hoped. I think I might be a bit too beat up or something."
"Those kinds of baths are better when you share them with someone. Back at my place when Inari ... er, nevermind. And no, I'm not coming in there," Jason say as he shakes his head in the chair he hasn't moved from.
"Well, I can't challenge you to that," Tracy notes. "I've never had a bath with someone though, but I imagine there'd be lots of splashing." Toweling sounds ensue. "Although along that line.. what do you think of Mike? Is he worth working on, or do you think I'd just be setting myself up for another Mark situation?"
"Mike? Hard to say. Seems a nice guy, if a bit silly. I think he prefers being a werewolf over being human, though. He's in the medical bay now under a bit of sedation so he doesn't feel the changes his body is going through," Jason answers. "I don't think he's a nutjob like Mark was, at least. As for how he would turn out .... couldn't tell you. My crystal ball was broken when my home was shot up."
Trace emerges from the bathroom, wearing one towel around her hips and another draped around her neck and shoulders, so that the two ends fall over her chest. She immediately turns her back to Jason and pulls her hair aside, asking, "How bad does it look?" Just below her right shoulderblade, and nearly wrapping around along the ribs is a big blue bruise.
"Oh My God. It's hideous. All that bare skin and toned muscle. I'm going to be sick," Jason gasps and clutches at his stomach. "And there's a really big bruise too. It'll turn green in a few days, but there is no skin tearing."
"Green?" Tracy asks, sounding alarmed. She turns to reveal another one on the same side again, but closer to the center of her ribcage. It isn't as broad, but looks a lot more painful, like she'd been punched hard in the chest.
"Yeah. Heavy bruises often take on a sickly green tone as they heal. Haven't you ever bruised yourself badly before?" Jason explains, "It's normal and goes away. You're rather lucky that didn't fracture the bones under it. Breaking your ribs or sternum is no joke. It hurts a lot and makes sleeping almost impossible without painkillers."
"It doesn't hurt when I take a deep breath, so that means it's not serious, right?" Tracy asks, just to be sure. "And of course I had bruises before, just.. not from being shot by a robot! I don't want my mom to know, so going to the infirmary is out of the question."
"If it doesn't hurt when you breathe, nothing should be broken. And no, I won't examine you to be sure, either," Jason confirms. "And just so you're aware for the next time ... being shot in the chest, even if it doesn't penetrate or creak anything can still kill you. It can make your heart stop."
Tracy's left hand goes to the bruise, and she looks worried again. But her heartbeat calms her down soon enough. "What, you thought I was going to ask you to examine my bruises?" she asks, looking surprised. "You aren't a doctor, so what would be the point? At best, I'd only ask you to kiss them to make them better."
"You would ask just to watch me squirm," Jason points out. "You're anything but shy."
"You'd actually squirm then?" Tracy asks, her eyes narrowing with a slightly mischievous look.
"Would you if I asked you to go feel up Mike for injuries?" Jason counters.
"Probably not, but I bet he'd squirm," Tracy laughs, then steps towards Jason, leans over, and... picks up her jumpsuit from the chair next to him. "But making you squirm would probably mean you wouldn't give me a shoulder rub if I asked," she reasons.
And Jason is looking the other way when Tracy leans over next to him. "No, I probably wouldn't," he agrees. "Partially because of that, and partially because Inari has sharp claws and teeth and I don't want to end up on the ends of them."
"She'd actually get jealous?" Tracy asks, heading back into the bathroom. "Or just angry? And with you, or with me? She doesn't really see me as competition, right? At least, not while Akiko is around.."
"I have no idea and I really don't want to find out," Jason answers, grateful the 'foul temptress' has returned to the bathroom. "She already wants me to become like her, you know. So ... she could react in any of those ways."
"She wants you to become a kitsune?" Tracy asks, poking her head back out for a moment.
"Yep. Fur, tail, long nose, and ears included," Jason answers.
Tracy vanishes again. "You'd have to make more," she claims. "I mean, otherwise your 'kits' wouldn't have any other kitsunes to grow up with." She emerges again wearing her own jumpsuit, and carrying her spandex sports bra in her hand. She keeps rolling her shoulders and 'adusting' herself though, looking uncomfortable.
"Volunteering?" Jason teases once Tracy appears again. "And you might want to not wear a boob squeezer bra until that bruise heals."
"Yeah, I'll have to use my SecondSkin half-shell supports," Tracy notes, then looks at Jason again. "Me as a kitsune? Then wouldn't Inari really be jealous?" she asks, hands on hips. "I'd be cuter, after all!"
"Second Skin Half Shell supports?" Jason has to ask. "And I seriously doubt you would be cuter, sorry."
"Oh, is that a challenge?" Tracy asks, as she retrieves her Crystal Bracer and clamps it back onto her left wrist. She sits down in the next chair and seems to deflate a little. "Meh, you're probably right. I'm best at attracting desperate types. Do you think Cadena will stick with me after all this, or take another assignment?"
"No, you're bad about accepting desperate types! They hit on people until someone bites after all," Jason points out and laughs. "As for Cadena? No idea. He seems to be a few screws short, or put another way a boat that's missing an oar. He's a bit mental."
"He thinks he can bring his original owner back to life or something," Tracy admits, pushing her lips to one side. "I guess if he does, he'll go back to her. And you probably don't want me coming around anymore if Inari is going to settle in."
"Ah, you feel like you're being abandoned," Jason reasons out and looks over to the young woman. "Did I say you wouldn't be welcome? You're assuming the worst of any situation, you know."
"It's a habit," Tracy notes, leaning back.. then wincing and sitting forward again. "Depending on the fallout from all this, I may have to hide my identity more than I was already doing."
"Oh, I doubt that; I haven't had to hide my identity after all. And yes, you would be welcome to visit. I'm sure Inari would want a good maid," Jason quips, reaches over, and pokes Tracy lightly in the ... ear.
Tracy acks! "Hey! Still, if we manage to get Sasha and the General and Sexy Jason rounded up, I've got a bottle of Virtuhol in my private beach-house sim, if you wanted to join me for a toast," she says, rubbing her ear and half-grinning.
"I've got a bottle of real bourbon somewhere," Jason counters. "Sure, it tastes like drinking a sweat sock, but all the real detectives drink it!" He pauses there, then has to add, "Of course that also explains why they rarely solve cases and are always broke..."
Standing up, Tracy stretches and goes to pick up her sports bra. "Gotta smuggle this out somehow," she mutters, then gets an evil look in her eye as she turns to look at Jason. "How good is Inari's sense of smell?" she asks innocently.
"Very good. Why?" Jason asks suspiciously.
"Hmmm, so if I turned this inside out, then rubbed it in your face, you'd have to explain to her why you smelled like me," Tracy notes, smiling innocently.
"And on that note, I think I'll leave," Jason says as he gets out of his seat and heads straight for the door. "Besides, you seem to be in a much better mood now. You don't need me around."
"Who will I vent my frustrations on then?" Tracy asks, then drops the garment and says, "I'd better go find my mom and Cadena anyway."
"And I should check on Inari and see if she's done with her shower. Her scent takes some getting used to, you know, but it's not unpleasant," Jason quips as he opens the door to the guest room. "And I can also say, mission accomplished. You smiled."
"I'll hold you to getting drunk after this is over," Tracy claims. "Real or virtual.. although virtual is safer," she points out. "No hangovers!"
"No fun of waking up the next morning upside down in a tutu and wondering what the hell happened the night before, either," Jason quips as he disappears out the door. "Or a french maid's outfit," he calls from somewhere in the hallway. "You would look so adorable! Go find your dog!"
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-09-05-catching-up-before-the-storm.htmlIn one of the recovery rooms, Tracy has just finished up with the pharmacy-bot. Luckily her bruises were easily treatable with some nano-balm to speed recovery and a bit of concealer to prevent them turning black or green. Now it's just the soreness and other inconveniences of them to deal with. "Can you tell me the status of patient Michael Dexter?" she asks the robo-bug.
The doctor looks up as if consulting a directory, though in reality Tracy knows that it's just an emotive gesture to cover its lack of immediate response. "Michael Dexter is currently recovering in suite 6, miss," it says in a pleasant baritone. "Do you wish me to inquire if he would like a visitor?"
"He's awake then?" Tracy asks in surprise. "Not just yet, I need to.. rest a bit first, I guess. I'll ask again later."
A white-furred humanoid in what looks like a mish-mash of Avatars LLC security armor and robes (somewhat worse for the wear) dashes into the room. "Where is she?" Cadena asks hastily, and then his eyes settle upon Tracy. "Miss Trud-- Tracy!" He rushes over to her, eyes looking on the verge of tearing as he checks on her. "Are you quite all right? I heard you had been taken to the infirmary!"
"Aaugh!" Tracy yelps, digging her fingers into the side of the couch-cot. "Cadena?! How are you.." she stammers with wide-eyes. "WHY AREN'T YOU A DOG?"
The doctor-robot winks one of its optics at Tracy, then resumes its rounds. It sidles up to a different suite and opens the door, going in to greet the patient. "How are you doing, Mr. Patterson?..."
Cadena looks very taken aback at this, and pats his muzzle and nose with his hands, then regards them as well. "Ah ... yes. I seem to be stable in this form. The SPARK assures me that I can change back, if it is necessary. Perhaps this close to the Q-Cores, there wouldn't be any grave side effects, but I was afraid of testing this theory in the hover car. A mishap could have been ... messy."
"But.. you jumped out through a portal into a cryo-facility," Tracy says, slowly and clearly. "Is it because.. you were from the Diadem originally?"
"Look, I know you're tough. You're tougher than me! That doesn't mean you shouldn't get checked out after being shot repeatedly. Something could be broken, or you could have internal bleeding. The only thing I'm fairly sure you don't have is an alien infection," Jason's voice echoes from somewhere outside the medical bay. "... and I just gave myself a rather creepy mental image. I really need to quit watching old movies."
Cadena blinks and shakes his head. "I ... I'll try to explain as best I can, but I'm afraid that my knowledge on that matter is highly suspect, and likely to be littered with considerable speculation, since no one is capable of giving me a straight answer on it. Must ... must not get distracted. This is important. Trying to keep it quick. Sasha is in the building - in the custody of Avatars LLC security. She drove me here, but apparently - somehow - did not know who I was. She was seeking out the North Bend simulation data, and thought I could help her acquire it."
Inari's voice responds, "Let's just say I have a little phobia about doctors ever since a certain incident years ago. It was just supposed to be a full-body scan in some experimental holo-imaging setup... Stay with me, Jason?"
"WHERE IS SHE?!" Tracy demands, leaping forward to grab Cadena by the shoulders. "I... would like.. to talk to her," she adds through gritted teeth.
Cadena holds Tracy back gently. "Please! She is in custody, and she's being kept sedated until your mother can have a word with her first. Vice President Trudeau's wishes on that matter are very clear. Also, I met HECATE."
"Oh, uh, sure," Jason agrees as he comes through the door to the medical bay, "And you'll have to tell me what happened the last time ... sometime." Upon spotting Cadena, though, he stops mid-step and almost falls on his face. "They weren't kidding when they said vitamins help growing boys," he claims in an attempt to recover some dignity.
The doctor-robot pads back out of the suite. Like other ladybug-robots, it trundles around on four legs and has a look of utter harmlessness in its body and head design. Its manipulator arms are normally kept folded beneath the front part of its body, but when unfolded, it actually has two major arms and two tiny micromanipulator arms.
"Ah! Do you need any treatment, sir or madam?" says the doctor-robot, trotting up. Its optic camera-head swivels toward Jason, then Inari.
"That's.. the name of Sasha's AD, right?" Tracy says, forcing herself to calm down, even though it does just leave her shaking a bit. "You'd better tell me things from the start: what happened when you and your evil twin went through Atlas's portal?"
The golden vixen clings to Jason's arm, eying the doctor-bug suspiciously.
"She needs to be checked out. She was armored ... but taking several bullets could have damaged something," Jason tells the bot and thumbs towards Inari. "What's this about Sasha and her disturbing computer demon head?" he asks Tracy.
Inari watches the doctor approach uneasily. "I feel okay," she claims. "It's probably just a bruise or two. Nothing a day or two taking it easy won't fix."
"Except you never take it easy," Jason points out.
Cadena says, "I'm so sorry, Tracy. You're right." He takes a deep breath. "I didn't mean to abandon you. I was in a logical lapse, regressing to another role - Ranch Hand Cadena from Fantasy Rancher. When I talked of going 'home,' ATLAS somehow had enough information on me to interpret that I wished to see 'Miss Margie,' that that meant visiting her real-life corporeal form ... in a private cryogenic chamber hidden within the Arcadia residence. ATLAS also sent 'Dark Renard' with me - unit BLK-1138-R-005 (tag incomplete)." Cadena recites the partial tag (and the "tag incomplete" note) in a different tone of voice. "Upon passing through the portal, Renard's connection was severed, and the unit began to degrade, and shifted into idle-mode programming. I, however, remained stable, but the obvious paradigm shift allowed me to regain my sanity for the moment."
"No pain, no gain!" Inari rebuts.
"You actually were sane before?" Jason is compelled to ask Cadena.
Sitting down again, Tracy takes a deep breath to calm down (then winces from it). "Okay, so.. you were sane - I'll take your word for it. And Inari... grow up and let the doctor treat you! Sheesh! Please continue, Cadena."
The doctor chuckles. "Well, your armored jumpsuit may have stopped the bullets, Miss, but you'll put the sir's mind at ease if you allow me to examine you and verify that there are no worser complications. If you'll step into examination room 1 and disrobe, I'll be there in just a moment."
The golden vixen looks at Jason for help.
"You're going to make me go in the exam room with you, aren't you?" Jason asks Inari.
"... Or just wait outside and if I call for help, come in with a wrench and disassemble the wretched thing before it finishes assimilating me like that thing downstairs wanted to do with Chaz and his girlfriend?" Inari murmurs. She gives Tracy an annoyed look.
Cadena says, "Any assessment on my part of my own sanity is purely speculation, and, due to the lack of detachment from the matter, not to be taken as--" He blinks and shakes his head, snapping out of whatever mode he just fell into. "I digress. I was able to 'break out of character' enough to establish a truce of sorts with BLK-1138-R-005's localized AI - its physical form apparently actually carried enough of a developed brain to contain its own 'idle-mode' programming, so to speak, once detached from Renard - whether 'Renard' is indeed an in-game AI or player, I don't know. I persuaded it to cease hostilities, in exchange for promising to use my abilities to return it to its proper place."
"You did okay diagnosing my injuries, Jason," Tracy points out. "You can't do any less for your girlfriend." She shows an awful lot of teeth when she grins.
"Wait.. what did the brain look like?" Tracy asks Cadena.
The doctor winks. "I assure you, miss, I have no designs on your body beyond the purely medical. I was programmed by Asclepius Worldwide with a strict abidance by the Hippocratic Oath."
I hope you develop a severe case of irritable bowel syndrome from the food here, Tracy," Jason grumbles as he takes Inari's arm and guides her towards the first exam room. "And I also expect you to behave in here. No teasing!" he warns Inari.
"Apparently," Cadena says. "I didn't get a chance to do an examination on it. I was under quite a few pressures to act quickly. For one thing, I was in the chamber with Margie's corporeal form ... and it would seem that, for lack of a better term, I had received an overlay of her personality template somehow co-existing within my head. Or, as HECATE put it, I was carrying her 'Observer Soul,' which woke up when in close proximity to her physical form."
Cadena blinks, then rephrases that. "In other words, I could hear Margie inside my head, and it was very alarming."
"Was that the first time you heard her in your head though?" Tracy asks, thinking back to some of Cadena's odder moments.
Cadena pauses, pondering. "I cannot answer that with absolute certainty, but this felt ... more authentic. Now then, I had a hostile, slowly melting giant fox-thing. I had been suffering from the delusion that this was a Black Cadejo form - that is, Black Cadena - but apparently the portal shift allowed me to see it for what it really was - just a very large demonic fox form. About that time, Miss Penny Arcadia, a security bot, and Ms. Sasha Knightley appeared in response to the in-home security alarms going off. Sasha Knightley was wearing what I took was a prison jumpsuit, and I suspect she wasn't properly out on bail. BLK-1138-R-005 reacted with hostility toward her, claiming she was an agent of the WHITE, but did not attack, as per our truce."
The golden vixen allows Jason to escort her to the examination room. She gets up on the medical bed, noting the embedded scanning display underneath.
"The WHITE.. but not the Spark?" Tracy asks, then shakes her head. "So, Penny Arcadia really was involved with Face Reality, I guess? Or you're probably getting to that. Anyway, sounds like Black Cadena was another minion or splinter of the BLACK.. Oh, we beat him, I think. I.. haven't really looked to see what the fallout has been yet."
Above the examination room's bed is a multi-function arm which currently supports a lamp and some small medical scanners of various designs. Fortunately for those made nervous by medicine, none of the scanners resemble a knife or drill.
"I don't think BLK-1138-R-005 was really Black Cadena in any sense," Cadena adds. "He was just a 'monstrous' form for Renard, and when I suffered the delusion that he was Black Cadena, Renard tried to play along - badly. In any case, SPARK didn't vouch for Sasha. As for Ms. Penny Arcadia's involvement ... I have quite considerable difficulty in believing that she could sanction the actions of Face Reality. I refuse to give her anything less than the benefit of a doubt, though I must confess that it does not look good at all at this point. It didn't look any better when she called upon and summoned a manifestation of HECATE - who appeared as a triune being akin to the three Fates, reminiscent of the mother, crone, and maiden ... though, to be honest, I didn't get a close look at them, and my attention was very divided at this point."
"Manifestation ... I should be more clear. Hologram," Cadena quickly adds. "Not in the flesh."
The doctor-bug trundles into the examination room. "All ready for your examination, Miss Inari?" he asks, his voice audible from outside. "Ah-- of course, Mr. Edwards is assisting you with disrobing. Thank you for your assistance, sir. Now if you'll just relax and lie down on the bed, I'll run a few simple diagnostics. Don't worry, this won't hurt a bit."
"Okay, what did you learn from HECATE, if anything?" Tracy asks. "I still want to know who is behind all that.. and why I was targeted!"
"Time to get you out of your clothes," Jason remarks to Inari just before he takes on the task that has scared every generation of teenagers since time immemorial; undressing a girl. A moment later Jason is heard to blurt, "Ow, claws!"
A second later, Tracy smacks herself in the forehead, and then turns on the recorder function of her bracer.
"But to get to the point, HECATE claimed that I had Margaret's 'observer soul' within me," Cadena adds, nodding. "Ms. Penny Arcadia recognized me, and made it clear that her intention was to get the data from the North Bend simulation - presumably the one that Ms. Summers had been imprisoned in - in order to get a copy of her genetic data from before the time she was exposed to the Robespierre's Revenge bioweapon. With this data, the degenerative disease that had been causing Margaret's body to deteriorate could perhaps be purged. However, Avatars LLC had prohibited access to it. HECATE claimed that my arrival with this soul indicated that the 'end' was 'near.' And, yes, that sounded rather ominous to me. Sasha offered to help get me to the Avatars LLC headquarters so that I could consult Vice President Burgundy to get access to the data. I didn't mention anything about his current predicament, as I was trying at this point to probe whether or not Sasha was involved in it."
"Not to sound like the ever pessimist," Jason says with masked pain in his voice, "But if Sasha is about and ... did I hear she was in custody? I know this is perhaps a bit paranoid ... but did you also put Moonbeam in custody? Because, if I were Sasha ... I would have expected to get caught coming here and planned for it by having Moonbeam shadow ... and orchestrate my escape and thus having full access to the building..."
"But.. wasn't that data stolen from Avatars back when Ms. Arcadia made the request?" Tracy asks. "They went to get it, and it was gone!"
"I'm afraid I don't really know much about that," Cadena says, shaking his head. "Well, HECATE created a portal to send BLK-1138-R-005 back to the Gloaming. As soon as he got back, Renard reconnected, and was not grateful, and insisted that I was doing a bad thing by trusting 'her' - though he didn't specify which one, and could have just as easily referred to 'them.' Sasha drove me over to Avatars LLC headquarters in Margaret's favorite aircar, employing the AI chauffeur. I was sure that Sasha was using me, but attempted to ferret out of her just what game she was up to. I mistakenly believed that she, like Ms. Arcadia, knew who I was. When it finally clicked that I was 'your dog,' she pulled a gun on me."
"Fortunately, I knew the vehicle very well," Cadena adds. "I had used an encoded transmission to inform Avatars security that I was compromised and that I and anyone with me should be subdued upon arrival. I also hit the 'panic button' to cause the vehicle to move erratically, and throw off Sasha's aim. I ... was under a lot of stress, and was under the delusion at one point that I was turning into Black Cadena. Fortunately, Avatars security subdued both of us before I could act out any further under that delusion."
"I don't suppose she mentioned why she's got this need to ruin my life or kill me or whatever?" Tracy asks. "I mean.. did she want to use my body to bring back Margaret?"
After some due struggling, the golden vixen has finally been calmed down enough to lie down properly. The doctor-robot hmms as the scanner-bed whines. "Well. You seem to have been fairly fortunate, Miss Inari," he says. "I'm picking up some major bone breakage, and muscle tears, which seem to have healed remarkably well despite no prior note of medical treatment other than your last checkup four years ago. The bruises will go away in a day or two. However..."
"Renard appeared to be aware that 'she' was the one to put the bounty on your head," Cadena says, "but, again, he didn't say which 'she' - HECATE, Ms. Knightley ... or, for that matter, Ms. Arcadia."
"I don't think that Sasha's intention in finding the North Bend simulation was fully in keeping with Ms. Arcadia's," Cadena says. "I couldn't fish out if her just what it was. I was not being very rational by that point, and I've never been good at such 'mind games' anyway."
"You're going to have to explain those injuries to me later," Jason mutters.
"Oh great, so HECATE could be Artemis then instead of Sasha?" Tracy asks, a bit rhetorically. "If it was Ms. Arcadia.. uh, I don't want to think it was out of revenge because she thinks Avatars was responsible for her daughter's death. She wasn't mad at you was she? As for Sasha's personal reason, that's obvious: if the simulation had Margaret's DNA and other simulation data, then Sasha could reasonably assume it had the same for her - maybe a copy of her original memories before Blake messed around with them? Hell.. maybe Akiko's data can be recovered too.."
"I honestly believe that Ms. Arcadia bore no hostility at all toward me," Cadena says. "If she bore any hostility toward Avatars, it would be only because of frustration at their resistance to providing her with the data from the North Bend simulation. I do not think she was helping her own case by failing to explain why she wanted access to the data. She was keeping the matter of Margaret Arcadia's survival a secret - for fear, I suppose, that the engineers of 'Robespierre's Revenge' might try to finish the job, since the perpetrators were never caught." He ponders further.
The robot continues, "As you may know, persons of your condition-- that is to say, having been in a simulated universe, then emerging-- are fairly rare, and as such, the medical corpus of knowledge is still being built up. I'm seeing an unusual variation in telomere length between your cells. Unfortunately the only way to be sure if this represents a trend of some kind is if you return for a checkup after some amount of time-- say, every six motnhs or possibly once a year." From the look on Inari's face, she has no desire to do so.
"As for memories ... I don't think the North Bend simulation can help with that ... not in any useful way," Cadena offers. "However, this is outside of my training. Based on the data I received from RIU, it does not appear that Blake had the capability of simply 'reprogramming' memories of his test subjects. Rather, he subjected them to mind-games, brainwashing techniques ... repeatedly changing their experiences and their anchors of reality, so that they would question any old memories that did not seem to fit the same reality. I ... I'm very familiar with that concept, at least."
Tracy rubs at her temples, trying to find a reason behind it all. "I wonder.. could it have been Sasha who orchestrated Margaret's condition all along?" she says. "I mean.. if she wanted the simulation data herself, she's have to have someone else get it for her. But, from what Jason was able to recover, it was also being used for prototyping the Zeus system. And I don't know who's behind that either. I want to talk to Sasha."
"Hold up there. Is she at any medical risk? I don't like the implications your diagnosis is making," Jason says to the bot. "I know vaguely that telomeres has to do with aging and some pursuit of immortality. Is there something wrong with her? Straight answers, extrapolating on known data and the possible tread."
"There's a matter of chronology here. Margaret was born with Robespierre's Revenge," Cadena explains to Tracy. "The bioweapon is something that infected Ms. Penny Arcadia and a great number of people with the misfortune of being in any of the release points - but the immediate victims suffered no ill effect. However, it rewrote their genetic code, so that their progeny would be genetically flawed - born with a ticking time bomb that would go off as their bodies developed, roughly in the 'tween' years."
"But even then.. I just don't know," Tracy admits. "None of that explains why Sasha hates me so much. I mean, I have legitimate reason to hate her. But it doesn't sound like recovering the DNA from before the symptoms showed up would make a difference then. It'd still be damaged, unless Margaret was constantly 'reset' to an age before the retrovirus activated."
The doctor-bot shakes its head. "There's no immediate risk, sir. It's statistically unusal for telomere length to vary between cells to such an extent. Has she been exposed to some unusual radiation or environments?"
"Unusual rad--" Inari laughs.
"Other than the quantum instability of recent events, not that I know of. But then again I also don't quite know everything she has been up to in the past four years, either," Jason notes from behind the door. "Would it be worthwhile comparing structure to someone who also went through the unstable zones? Such as well, me?"
Cadena shakes his head. "I'm sorry. Margaret's DNA is not in that simulation. Somehow, whoever built that simulation was able to obtain a genetic model of Penny Arcadia from a time before her infection. Presumably, it was drawn from yet another source, but presumably one that no longer exists, or one which is unknown, or else Ms. Arcadia surely would have gone for that instead."
The medical robot focuses on Jason. "Indeed, sir! Ah-- I don't seem to have your medical files on record, Mr. Edwards." It seems a touch suspicious of this fact. "If you'll be kind enough to return Miss Inari's jumpsuit to her, then to disrobe and lay on the bed, I'll begin the scan immediately."
"No one has my medical files except me," Jason points out to the robot. "No claws!" Jason can be heard to remark a few moments later after some suspicious rustling.
"Oh.. that makes more sense, I guess," Tracy says. "After all, her own DNA could be used to replace the broken parts of her daughter's.. potentially. But you don't know what Sasha's involvement was or when it started?"
The bed hums again as it scans Jason from head to toe. Even though it's purely psychosomatic, he can feel a warmth pass through his body.
Also, since she can't help but eavesdrop, Tracy says, "I bet it's the fox cells that are showing as being 'younger' than the Akiko cells for Inari, or something."
"Exactly," Cadena says, nodding approvingly. "And, no, I still do not know how Sasha got involved. Really, I could theoretically 'heal' Margie ... but my healing only creates unstable matter. She would need to be kept in the Diadem or the Gloaming, and only through a prolonged effort to replace her body with stable matter by a controlled environment and importing of Real World food, water, and air, over a period of many years...." He trails off. "What was this about Akiko and Inari?" He blinks at Tracy.
"It wouldn't take years! Remember that I was able to get several people out, those who were mostly unstable matter!" Jason calls out from behind the door! "Hey! Watch it with the cold robot fingers."
Cadena shudders. "Yes, I remember."
"My apologies! Warming my fingers now," says the doctor.
"Jason Zero came up with a process that just takes a few hours, apparently," Tracy notes. "That's how the Empire of Stars was able to infiltrate Avatars. But Inari was made from Akiko Summers, sort of. Jason separated them and upgraded their resolution or whatever so they'd be made of real matter.. but Inari would only have been a few years old, while Akiko was in her twenties.."
"And I need to ask this, Cadena: now that you have hands, does it feel the same if you scratch yourself behind your own ears as it does when someone else does it?" Tracy asks.
"Didn't we already discuss Inari's creation?" Cadena asks of Tracy, looking a bit confused and unsteady. "I must be misremembering. Sasha said that she didn't see the resemblance with Akiko at all, so even though that should be naturally understandable, given the complete lack of outward physical appearance, I suspect I should take that as a negation of that particular line of inquiry. The implications are disturbing." He snaps out of it and reaches back with a hand to tentatively try scratching behind an ear.
"Check Tracy for head injuries!" Jason calls through the door.
"Your telomeres appear normal for a thirty year old human, and do not share the unusual variation between cells that Miss Inari's do." the doctor observes. "It's puzzling, but I don't wish to alarm you by conjecturing needlessly, Miss Inari. Perhaps quantum instability has a more significant impact on your bodily systems than they would on others."
"Hey! You've got your own dog-with-hands and you never wondered?" Tracy calls back at the examination room.
"What is the risk to her?" Jason asks. "And no, I haven't," he shouts through the door. "I worry about important things."
The golden vixen rolls her eyes at the conversation in progress. "Having someone else scratch your ears is much, much better, four legs or not!"
"I'm ... not quite sure what I'm looking for," Cadena says, pulling his hand away and looking at it. "Sorry. I confuse imagination with ... theorizing sometimes. I'm so eager to find an answer, at times I just make one up and wish it were true. Perhaps it comes from spending so much time in a virtual environment where reality is largely subject to the whims of an 8-to-10-year-old, and if you all agree on it, well then, it must be true...."
Inari adds, "Now I'm worried. See, this is why I don't like doctors," she tells Jason.
"They can hear everything I'm saying, can't they?" Cadena asks of Tracy.
"Wait, you said Inari healed from some serious wounds before, right?" Tracy asks.. and absently reaches over and scratches Cadena's ears. "Wouldn't rapid regeneration cause the cells doing the healing to age faster, telomere-wise?"
"I'm starting to not care for them either," Jason mutters.
The doctor-bot hems and haws a bit. "Understand, this is patient-confidential." It lowers its voice.
"Well, they could hear, but I don't know if they were listening," Tracy tells Cadena. "That's why I'm recording everything."
"Now," Tracy says, focusing on Cadena again. "Is Margaret still in your head? Did HECATE try to 'extract' her or anything?"
"I know every inch of Inari," Jason points out in a lower and lower voice. "Spill it."
The doctor-robot activates a privacy screen briefly.
From this side of the screen, pleasant music can be heard.
"Margaret 'fell asleep' as we went further away from the Arcadia residence," Cadena says, seeking out a nearby chair and settling in it, suddenly looking weary. "HECATE made no attempt to 'extract' her from me. The general attitude seemed to be that doing so would be pointless until Margaret's body could be stabilized. It seems that, somehow, part of my brain is actually capable of holding Margaret's neural network. I cannot explain it. The only way I can imagine it were possible would be if I were made for such a purpose. Minds just ... don't work like that."
"Yeah, but.. well, aren't you from the Diadem in the same way Inari is?" Tracy asks Cadena. "Were you really grown in a lab, Cadena, or were just 'born' in VR, then made into a physical being?"
Cadena closes his eyes, concentrating. "The idea that I was manufactured in the Real World by Avatars corporation was a fabrication - or a stretching of the truth at best. I appeared in the Real World at the time of the failed Convergence, and I have no real memories before that point. What 'memories' I have are associations that I believe were artificially used in the construction of my neural framework, borrowed from one or more other living beings, and not gained through actual experience. Thus, I was able to speak, and didn't have to go through the stages of development that would be expected were I an infant."
"And you've shown to have multiple virtual personalities, all seemingly independent," Tracy notes. "So.. why couldn't one of them be Margaret? It just sounds like she's dormant unless you're physically in her presence."
"I don't have experiences of living in the Diadem before my existence as an 'artificial being' with Avatars LLC," Cadena says. "I only have knowledge of what I expect the Diadem to be like. I can neither confirm nor deny your theory regarding Margaret. I can say that I believe it to be actually Margaret, but I must also confess that I have every reason to want to believe it, which calls my objectivity into question."
"Well, wanting to believe it may be important to maintaining it," Tracy notes. "As for what can be done with it.. I mean.. is there any reason it couldn't be transferred into an entirely virtual body that would then be.. uh.. Margaret Zero? It happened with Jason, sort of. I've no idea how or when his mind was copied, but.. it happened."
"Perhaps it could be," Cadena says, "but I don't think we've perfectly settled the matter of just what makes an individual ... an individual. I have a line of inquiry to follow. The North Bend simulation may hold clues that can help not only to restore Margaret Arcadia's body, but also to find a way to help others suffering from Robespierre's Revenge. There are unknown others out there who still have that 'ticking time bomb' within. It usually manifests at a particular age, but by its nature, it's unpredictable. If there's some way to compare the genetic data, before and after exposure, that could be the key to find a cure."
Cadena runs his hands over his face. "Ah ... a slight digression, but do you happen to know what Ms. Akiko Summers's area of expertise was when she entered employment at Avatars LLC as an intern? I'm not certain about what she was trained in."
"I.. don't know," Tracy remarks. "I think she had a neural computer interface though, originally."
Cadena nods. "Sorry for the shift there. I have my own selfish and perhaps pointless reasons to be interested in the North Bend simulation. They came up during my brief 'discussion' with Ms. Knightley, and even though her reactions indicated they are likely total dead ends, I can't totally discount them quite yet. After all, she's ... not exactly all that trustworthy, and the situation wasn't conducive to clear, rational discussion. I.e., she was trying to kill me, and I'm not sure what BC was up to."
"Something isn't adding up," Tracy notes, looking out at the holo-window. "We know the North Bend simulation data was all but stripped from Blake's Q-Core - it was only through holographic recovery that Jason managed to get a sense of what it was. But Sasha, HECATE and Ms. Arcadia are acting as if they don't believe this, and that the data is still here somewhere. So.. who took it?"
"Also, Sasha is not aligned with the BLACK, who was involved with the Zeus system.. I think," Tracy continues, fidgeting with her hair now. "So, it would make sense for the BLACK to try and get rid of the data since it had references to the Zeus stuff - and maybe was where the BLACK was developing it in the first place. So.. if there's a backup it should be with whoever built Zeus, right?"
Cadena shakes his head. "Renard didn't seem to want me going along with them, but it's also possible he was just being a scheming troublemaker who, deprived of a chance to turn around and rip us to shreds, got pleasure out of 'planting seeds of distrust' or just did so as a matter of habit. Sasha might KNOW that the data is not actually accessible, but was merely playing me and Ms. Arcadia to try to get access to the building for other purposes; that's one reason why I was anxious to make sure she was subdued and sedated, and I'd really rather she wasn't on the premises at all. Alas, my 'finding' ability does not function in the Real World."
"That's another thing: HECATE can open portals," Tracy points out. "So, if Sasha was wearing a prisoner jumpsuit, then HECATE may have portaled her out of jail in California to the Arcadia residence.. like, just a minute before. I don't know how portals really work though... but there must either be a reason HECATE can't open one to the Avatars buildings or else maybe HECATE doesn't follow Sasha's orders."
"In any case," Cadena says, "just to put it all on the table, wild speculation and all, I was entertaining the idea that my neural template might have been based in part upon Ms. Summers, as a side effect of Mr. Edwards's special routine, and some other mental template. How much from one or the other, I don't know, but I think you'll agree that my personality is nothing like Akiko, so any relationship there is largely ... ah ... 'spiritual' at best."
"You aren't secretly attracted to Jason though, are you?" Tracy asks the anthro-dog, with one eyebrow raised. "Because Akiko is totally attracted to him."
"Hmm." Cadena pauses a moment, pondering. "No, I don't think I am. I'd probably take a bullet for him, but the same can be said for a great many people. That's a good line of inquiry, though."
"And that was classified? I could have ... oh nevermind. Thank you Holly. I mean that," Jason says as he finishes adjusting his attire. "And never underestimate someone because of their size, eh? If you need anything, just let me know. And Inari, we had better get out of here before the other two start speculating on what is going on in here."
"In any case," Cadena says, "that process basically served to copy a portion of a human mind, and create a body, combined with a process to make it stable. This was not a destructive process. The neural pattern was copied, not moved."
"If you have some of Akiko's neural template, it may not be an emotional part," Tracy says. "And I have no idea what any of that even means - I didn't study AI development. Or I haven't. Not yet. But I think I need to look into an internship here after all, to try and develop the 'convergence system' into a usable medical procedure."
"I think that if that process was still left in the system," Cadena continues, "one of the ADs might have decided to employ it. It was, after all, a process that existed outside of normal protocols, and therefore could have allowed an AD to indirectly take action that was otherwise not part of its normal programming, thus bypassing more than a few safeguards. And I think that process was employed a few times when the Convergence happened. That's why there were a few creatures such as myself left over that didn't dissolve once the intrusion zone retreated."
The privacy screen lowers, allowing the sound of Jason turning the doorknob to penetrate.
"In any case, I'd need to inquire of Ms. Summ--" Cadena cuts off.
"And I don't know what happened to the AI Blake had running his simulation," Tracy says. "I'm pretty sure there was one, since.. well, that's kinda necessary. I have a suspicion that Dantech has what we need, data-wise. And may also be infiltrated by virtual people."
"Inquire what? She doesn't need a dog," Jason quips as he comes out of the exam room. "And what's this about Dantech? Well, besides the fact I'm pretty sure they're behind everything going on."
Cadena nods. "That sounds reasonable. But, again, please note that everything I'm offering here falls under the 'wild speculation' category. I haven't a shred of evidence to back any of it all." He turns to Jason. "I was just sharing with Tracy some of the wild speculation that I ran by you earlier, before we ran into that unfortunate incident near the Q-Cores."
"Just.. speculating," Tracy says, and explains about Cadena's encounter with Penny Arcadia, HECATE and Sasha and the questions it raised.
"So, how's Inari?" Tracy then asks. "And you? I didn't get scanned, so if there's something to worry about from being digitized.."
The golden vixen looks quite intact but visibly worried, judging from the paleness of her inside ears. Once again clad in her armored jumpsuit, she goes out with Jason, arm in arm.
Cadena adds in a few more details (such as the incomplete tag for unit BLK-1138-R-005, just in case that's ever useful for communicating with the entity in the future), but leaves out that business about "templates" and his own origins and such.
"Oh, I can tell you who probably has the simulation data. I do. Well, my clone I mean. Holly accused me of hacking the system earlier before it crashed, which I hadn't. But ... I wouldn't be surprised if my counterpart did, which means Andrei wanted it for some reason," Jason remarks after hearing all the wild theories he missed while he was sequestered with Inari.
"Is Dantech the company providing the technology for the Zeus Weather Control system?" Tracy asks, casting a worried look at Inari.
"And that is the only route of where it could have gone that hasn't been closed off yet," Jason adds as further evidence. "As for if they are? I can find that out pretty quickly, probably and taps the side of his head. "Let me see what Kimon can dig up on contract records for the project."
Cadena rises from his chair and bows his head to Inari and Jason. "I'm glad to see that you're both all right, by the way. I sincerely regret my 'episode' back at the top of the tower. I didn't mean to abandon you all like that."
"How about you, Inari? Are you just in shock from seeing Jason in good light or is it something serious?" Tracy asks the vixen.
Inari laughs. "No, no, it's nothing. I just have a bruise, it will heal in a day or so."
Jason shrugs slightly at that apology. "Accepted, but not unexpected that you did that. Your actions thus far have shown you are operating on some subconscious agenda that does not factor in the safety of everyone else. It's hardly your fault, though. It's hard to over-ride built in ... oop, hold on, message from Randall," he babbles.
"I hope he's okay, and it's not some issue with the old convergence site," Tracy says quietly. "No telling what effect the recent one would have had on it.."
Cadena does not argue with Jason. Instead, while Jason seems to be busy with an incoming call, he turns to Inari. "Please pardon me, Ms. Inari, but I have a quick and probably pointless question - but it might help me squash another ... wild theory. By any chance, as I am now, or perhaps if you imagined that I had a different fur color - say, black - do I look at all familiar to you? Say, from some iteration of North Bend? Perhaps if I were holding a musical instrument?"
"They're fine. Mara, Randall, and Akiko made it and are going to the Avatars base near the original convergence point. She should be fine in a day or so," Jason tells the other. His gaze then goes distant; probably because he's sending a reply.
Meanwhile, Tracy has to shake the vision of an all were-canine rock band from her mind. "Would they solve mysteries with their goofy human pet?" she wonders.
The golden vixen eyes Cadena curiously. "Hmmm..." She looks about the room, then finds a first-aid box and uses gauze to tape a long medical stand to it, then holds it out for Cadena to hold like a guitar.
Cadena plays along, holding the faux-guitar, arranging his fingers on imaginary frets to form a chord, and clutching an imaginary pick.
Jason reaches up and oddly hugs his own shoulders awkwardly. "Eh, what's this about looking familiar? Did you once belong to a witch?" he jokes once he's actually paying attention to the room again.
Inari shakes her head. "Nope! Doesn't ring a bell." She grins toothily.
"You look even more stranger than usual," Jason adds to that, "But not any more familiar."
"Then why'd you make a fake guitar instead of.. an oboe or something?" Tracy asks, although her voice has become a bit more deferential. Now that Inari seems to be livening back up, the girl is reverting more to her shy, submissive persona.
Cadena fiddles with the imaginary guitar for a bit, then snaps out of it, ears blushing. He starts to put things back into their proper places. "Well, that's one possibility squashed. Thank you, Ms. Inari."
"Silly, oboes don't go with rock and roll!" Inari points out.
"Oh," Tracy says.. but doesn't remember Cadena mentioning a particular kind of music.
"So, I heard Sasha was here? Anyone know what room? And that she's on sedatives? Anyone got the id code of the administration system keeping her under? It would be just horrible if an overdose happened because of improper maintenance," Jason remarks as he paces back and forth a bit.
Cadena walks over to Tracy, and whispers in her ear, "It's nothing. I got from RIU's data that during one of the 'iterations' of North Bend, Inari was an arch-villainess who had her own rock band comprised of monsters. In one of Black Cadena's ... er ... roles ... he played bass guitar in Metal Galaxy Epic. My crazy theory was that my neural pattern could have been an echo of something created in the North Bend simulation."
The doc-bot pads out of the examination, having finished straightening everything up. "Sasha Knightley? She is in the security wing's infirmary," it says cheerily. "I believe that one of GANGLOT's medical subprocesses is handling her case."
"We can't kill Sasha," Tracy says. "I need to talk to her." Now she looks at Cadena, and tries to picture him in studded leather with neon tubing and rainbow glam-hair..
"Ahah, well, thank you," Jason tells the bot as he rubs his hands together, "And who said anything about killing her? I'm worried about accidents." Cadena then gets a rather peculiar look from Jason as he says, "Eh? You would make a terrible rocker. You apologize too much."
"However, that would be a confusion of cause and effect," Cadena continues in a low mutter. "Black Cadena was drafted as a bass guitarist simply because Margaret's friend Daphne thought my 'White Knight' rocker didn't have enough swagger to be a real rocker. It would be too amazing of a coincidence, since Daphne had nothing to do with North Bend. If there had been a connection, I would have had more to worry about, honestly."
Inari mutters, "Speak for yourself" at the mention of 'not killing Sasha'.
"I need to know why she set the Wild Hunt on me," Tracy notes. "I really need to know, okay? She won't talk if you guys are threatening to kill her. Besides, I already called dibs on beating her up."
"And sorry to harp on a point, but where is Moonbeam?" Jason reminds the rest of the group. "Sasha isn't an idiot. She would have planned for the contingency of getting caught. Also, was she scanned for implants?"
"If you see her, I would like to accompany you, Tracy," Cadena says. "If it will make her feel any better, I'll even let her hit me a few times to vent her frustrations."
"In any case," Cadena notes, "nobody is seeing Sasha until Vice President Trudeau has questioned her."
"I should also point out Inari and I have a greater claim on her than you do, Tracy. She tried to kill us. You she just tried to kidnap," Jason points out.
"Sasha isn't allowed to vent her frustrations," Tracy says. "You can come to keep me calm though. But I have precedent over everyone else here: Sasha messed with my life first, before she was turned into one of Blake's toys and messed with you, Inari."
"And she did it all on her own, no brainwashing or excuses," Tracy points out.
"Sorry, Tracy, you aren't in charge here," Jason points out.
"No, you're right," Tracy admits. "My mom is."
"And she tasked me with keeping you safe," Jason points out. "I rather doubt she wants you anywhere near Sasha."
The doc-bot looks up as if consulting medical records. "When she was brought in, we did run a quick scan. There appeared to be no neurological issues caused by electrically stunning her. She is a healthy woman in the age 18-20 or so. We did detect a subcutaneous implant behind her left ear, such as would be used for a subvocal communicator; however, the security wing is contained within a Faraday cage and as such, will not permit any communications from her implant to be relayed outside of the immediate vicinity."
Inari rolls her eyes. "Why are you all arguing about who gets to deal with Sasha first?" she asks. "Why don't we all beat her up together?"
"And as I've noted and people seem to keep missing, there is a bloodthirsty panther somewhere we should be worrying about," Jason adds, exasperated.
"No panther has been scanned recently on our medical records," the doc-bot offers helpfully.
Jason resists kicking the medical robot.
RIU eeps? looking up at this. It looks around as if expecting a panther to be closing in on them at this very moment.
"I don't have to be in the same room to talk to her," Tracy points out. "It doesn't even to be in the physical world. But I do deserve the chance."
Cadena says, "For what little it is worth, I did not encounter any manifestation of 'Moonbeam' at any point during my foray into the Real World, and there was precious little room in the hover car for such a creature. Any such manifestation would require ... well, the sort of flaw in reality that could be used to get into this place despite all our security measures whether or not Ms. Knightley were on the premises."
The mini-dragon relaxes and goes back to sleep on Jason, its head perched on his as if he were a comfy chin-rest. Apparently controlling a big robot kind of drained its resources for a bit!
"The likelyhood of a direct infiltration of Avatar's by flying a car here is beyond silly. Sasha had to know that. If I were her, I would have planned on getting caught and worked from that angle. Meaning she's now inside and past all external security. What remains is getting out of confines, through either her won, or external assistance, and tada, she has access to all of Avatar's," Jason adds as he resumes pacing.
"Do you think my mom's an idiot?" Tracy asks Jason calmly.
Inari drapes herself over one of the infirmary's waiting room chairs. "Well, it sounds like the most logical thing to do is to go and check on Sasha ourselves, don't you think?" she asks.
This sounds normal enough... Apart from Inari sprouting claws on her hand and lightly scoring the faux leather of the chair.
"The best hacks are almost always social engineering ones," Jason remarks to Tracy. "Not technology, but playing on the flaws of people. I've, more than once, gotten companies to simply hand me all the access information I've needed. It has nothing to do with your mother being an idiot, Tracy. She can't be everywhere at once and we've already seen Avatar's own screening process is very flawed given the recent infiltration. It's the secretary being an idiot for a moment, or a guard falling for some trick, such as a distracting sound, and so on."
"Don't fall victim to feeling that everything is secured and flawless, basically. I expect Sasha is up to something and I'm working from that angle. Don't believe for an instant she's harmless," Jason adds.
"I just want to talk to her before you all get your claws into her, is that so much to ask?" Tracy asks, already slouching now and hiding behind her hair like.. a mopey teenager, probably.
"Ms. Trudeau, if it will help, I know the general direction in which we should go," Cadena says, offering his arm to Tracy.
"Thanks, Cadena," Tracy says, getting up and taking the arm. "There must be a medical monitor at least that I can talk to her through. I've killed enough people today so Sasha is safe from me, at least. For now."
"She doesn't go alone. And frankly, given your own mental instability, I have a hard time considering you a 'good enough' guard. You could turn into Slappy McWhackenpuff without warning and hand her over to Sasha, HECATE, or some other group,," Jason says a bit bluntly. "I am sorry if that hurts your feelings, but I think you get my concern."
Cadena does not immediately respond to Jason, and instead makes his way toward the door with Tracy. In the hall, he whispers to her, "I will do my best to serve and protect you, no matter what."
"Come on, we had better keep an eye on things," Jason remarks to Inari and goes to follow them.
"I know, but it's the combination of those two things that gets to Jason, I think," Tracy replies. "I think he feels the 'serve' part compromises the 'protect' part."
Inari gets to her feet in a lithe sweep, tail fwoosh and up! "Lead the way," she says.
"If there is ever a conflict between the two," Cadena says to Tracy, "just remember that even if I were somehow Black Cadena, I would always obey you."
Eddie, or his brother, meets them at the lobby of the security wing. "Ah! You want to check on our latest guest? Just a moment." After checking, he adds, "Vice President Trudeau hasn't had time to question her yet, but if you wish, the prisoner can be revived for your questioning. The interview will have to be logged for Vice President Trudeau, I'm afraid."
"Then there are no directives that we would be contradicting by questioning her before Vice President Trudeau has had the chance?" Cadena asks of the robot.
"That's fine, I don't have a lot of questions," Tracy notes. "I'd rather not be in the same room with the prisoner though, if possible."
Cadena nods in agreement with Tracy.
"I would to monitor her, but it is not required," Jason notes from behind the other two. "And oh, Tracy, there is an eighty-five percent chance that almost all the major components of Zeus were furnished by Dantech. I also have records of their political contributions to the politicians that supported the project."
Eddie clicks, whirrs, buzzes. "In her exact words: 'If they've got time to worry about Sasha, let them! We're being DOSed to hell and back by people trying to get in the game, and we've got to bring up a new BLACK from initial seed and Dantech is beating on our doors wanting to know what happened to their precious Q-Cores they licensed to us and why their machines are reporting massive damage in violation of NDAs, and... Gah!"
"Well, that's.. refreshing," Tracy says. "Better to have all our enemies in one basket, right?" Turning to the security droid, she asks, "Is Ms. Knightly being sedated with amobarbital or similar tongue-loosening drugs?"
"End replay," Eddie says cheerfully. "I'll lead you up to an observation lounge where you can be linked to one of the interrogation booths. No, a simple sedative with no side effects. Use of truth drugs requires authorization from the security chief on duty, I'm afraid."
"Okay, wanted to be sure," Tracy says. "That means Sasha will be fully lucid if we wake her up."
"Well, as lucid as she ever was," Jason points out.
"We've still got voice stress analysis and other biometrics to tell if she's lying to us though," Tracy points out. "Okay Eddie, take us to the observation room."
Eddie leads the way through a weapon-scanning gateway and checkpoint to one of the elevators. "Would you like me to contact the security chief and request permission for the application of truth drugs?" it asks.
"I have a dragon and I'm not afraid to use it," Jason quips to the weapons checkpoint.
"They just make the subject babble more," Tracy says, waving her hand. "Just in a more relaxed way so the stress analysis may not be effective. Better to go with the biometrics instead."
"Acknowledged!" says the weapons checkpoint 'bot. "Just be careful what you shoot, sir."
Jason smirks at the weapons-bot. "Humor is still lacking in the simpler AIs," he comments.
The observation lounge is designed with a simple camera and screen so that only the interrogator is visible to the person being questioned, but a variety of people can be offscreen and comment at any time. Other monitors to the side allow additional information to be brought up as needed, or messages to be relayed invisibly to the prisoner, including as Tracy suggests, biometrics and a running textual log of the prisoner's statements.
"Here we are, sirs and madams," Eddie says. "Are you ready to question Sasha or would you like a few moments to plan your interrogation?"
"You're running the show, Tracy. Up to you," Jason says.
"I'm ready," Tracy says, after taking a deep breath. She still looks a bit shaky though.
"Sasha has been brought to the interrogation booth. The security robot is currently applying her restraints, madam," Eddie says. "Administering sedation neutralizers now." The monitor lights up to show a dark-haired in hospital blues. Letting her keep her original armored jumpsuit would have been an obvious failing in security, considering how many tricks could be hidden in a jumpsuit. She is currently secured to her chair by restraints on her wrists and ankles.
A side-menu shows options for lighting. Standard, Subdued, and Intimidation Red are some of the notable names.
"This reminds me of a video being shown at an old sci-fi convention Randall dragged me to years ago. We went into the wrong theater and well, this sort of thing that was playing. Evil aliens behind bars, or whatever it was. We didn't stay long," Jason remarks absently to the others.
Inari whispers back to Jason, "There needs to be an option for 'apply probe'."
Tracy selects subdued lighting for now, and is momentarily confused by the backdrop options. She goes for glittery red curtains and no audio or video distortion effects.
Cadena strolls over to the side, and comes back a moment later with a cold "Enervate!" energy drink, which he puts into a holder near Tracy's seat.
Jason snorts and just barely stops a laugh in time. "Behave," he mutters to Inari.
"Thanks Cadena," Tracy says, although her stomach is doing it's own gymnastics at the moment.
"What... Who... Where am I?" Sasha asks, coming blearily to alertness. Her eyes focus slowly on the Asian girl in front of her, and her hands and feet move against their bonds. There's a sudden heartrate spike as she recognizes Tracy.
Cadena quietly walks back to stand behind Inari and Jason, and leans in, whispering, "There are vending machines nearby, if you care for drinks, or snacks or sandwiches. They have all the standard replicator options, if you'd like me to fetch anything for you."
Inari's tummy rumbles. "I'm starving," she murmurs, and goes to look and see what the options are herself.
Watching the monitor, Tracy turns on the audio pickup and says, "You're safe, Sasha.. uh." She has to pause and lick her lips, a bit put off by Sasha's apparently being her own age. After all, Tracy was only 11 when her world seemed to crumble under the older woman's influence. "I.. want to ask you some questions, okay?"
"Ah, no thank you. I'm fine. Also, I'm not sure this is a good idea for either of them," Jason mutters back to Cadena. "Tracy is already at a disadvantage because she's probably going to be emotional ... and Sasha was good at manipulating that."
"You seem to have me at an advantage, Miss..." Sasha seems to be playing dumb for now, though her eyes are crafty. "What have I done wrong? Why am I being held?"
"You know who I am," Tracy notes with a hint of irritation. "I can see your biometrics. Are you also Artemis, leader of the Wild Hunt?"
Cadena only nods to Jason, then returns to stand beside Tracy - though carefully outside of the visual pickup range.
"No, I don't know who that is, I don't know what you mean by 'Wild Hunt'," Sasha claims. Lie.
"I am so tempted to have RIU stick his face up to the camera and blow a raspberry at Sasha," Jason remarks. He glances in the direction Inari went to, well, make sure she's still there.
Tracy closes her eyes for a moment, and tries not to show her frustration. "I just want to know why, dammit," she hisses. "What do you want me for? It just doesn't make any sense! You had every reason to stay as far out of my life as possible!"
The golden vixen appears to be looking over the options on the replicator. "'What Wild Hunt', my left paw," she mutters.
Sasha smirks, then tries to pull her face into a more neutral smile. "I'm sorry, but I was just driving someone's dog to Avatars to drop him off at a friend's request, and he suddenly attacked me, and the next thing I knew, I woke up here. Is there some kind of law against transporting dogs all of a sudden?"
"Oh you are such a terrible liar," Jason remarks, a bit louder so that perhaps the mic picks up his comment.
Eyes narrowed, Tracy asks, "Is it because of Tracer?" Now it's her to turn to smile a little. "Because she became the Champion when you utterly failed?"
Cadena tries to stay out of the way, taking a seat near Tracy, and familiarizing himself with the interrogator interface, while making a point of not interfering with the present session.
Sasha tilts her head. Perhaps she heard Jason's voice. Her expression shifts a little. "Let me ask you, what's my incentive for answering your questions, little girl? After all, if I just wait, Ms. Arcadia is going to get curious why I haven't reported in. So I don't see any reason to talk."
"Don't you want to know where Moonbeam is?" Tracy asks.
Cadena leans back in his chair, ears perked curiously as he flicks between regarding Tracy's expression and Sasha's response.
Jason actually smirks at that. "Ooo, well played," he thinks, impressed by Tracy's ploy.
"Moonbeam? Probably it's not night yet and moonbeams only come out at night, you know," Sasha says innocently. She smirks.
"Well, if I looked like you or your little pet, I would only come out after dark too," Jason quips.
Next to the various menus for configuring the interrogation environment and the appearance of the interrogator, there's a button with a lock symbol over it. The tooltip on the button says, 'Advanced Questioning Techniques - Security Chief Approval Required.'
Bringing out her chip wallet, Tracy extracts one of the V-Chips and holds it up to the camera. "So you don't care if I erase this chip? And as for Ms. Arcadia.. well, you were overdue weeks ago, Sasha. You've been in.. holding.. for awhile. Would you be surprised to learn that you are on a chip like this one now?"
Sasha looks a bit doubtful... Then worried as Tracy continues. "You're bluffing," she says. "Moonlight says it hasn't--"
Sound of rending metals and crinkling ceramics from off the camera. Eddie looks up alertly. "Deploying additional robots to the area now," it says chirpily. "Her guard has been attacked."
Inari drops her loaded tray of half-eaten sandwiches, scattering crumbs on the floor. "Which way to her?!" she demands of Eddie, turning toward the exit.
"It's not hard, when you're dealing with a person who doesn't officially exist you know," Tracy points out. "Like you! I mean, Sasha Knightly would be pushing 30 now. There's no way you could prove your identity, and a DNA match from someone obviously much younger would only get you labeled a replicant - and you know what happens to them. But in here, you're safe from all of that. As safe as you were in Blake's North Bend. Oops. Looks like we have to shut you off for a bit. Maybe we'll talk again sometime.."
"I did try to warn you," Jason points out. "RIU, looks like we need to go deal with ... something," he thinks to the little dragon around his shoulders and heads towards the door himself.
Sasha struggles with her bonds. "Moonlight! Hurry up with the guard and get me out of here!" Then she bares her teeth at the monitor. "And for the record, Tracy Trudeau... You're just a hold on your mom, that's all you are to me. If we have you, then Holly has to do whatever we ask to get you back."
The guard yells, "Warning! Lethal force may be used from this point onward to subdue escaping prisoners and their accomplices. War--" Its voice cuts out, though there was a rather loud ZAP noise.
Cadena's eyes flash. "Lethal force may be used."
"Hey Sasha," Jason calls out, hoping the woman can hear him as he heads to intercept these two as well. "Thanks for calling her. I'll be sure to kill that cat this time."
Eddie leads the way, switching to a faster gait. "Down one level and to the left out of the elevator!" it says cheerfully, in exactly the same tone of voice as it would have used in greeting them. "But there's no need to worry, we have three robots coming up on the scene. I'm sure everything will be fine."
Tracy turns off the lights to the room. "Nothing personal then? Well, the Wild Hunt still owes me a boon for not getting captured you know," she claims, before cutting off the monitor in Sasha's room.
Cadena says, "I request that Sasha be immediately sedated, so as to hinder her ability to aid in her own escape."
"I doubt that was enough to have Penny Arcadia arrested," Tracy says as she slumps in her seat and shivers.
"Of course, sir! Er, once we have her restrained," Eddie says. The elevator, already called, opens its door and chimes.
"Yep, I'm sure it'll be as fine as it has been handled so far. I did try to warn you she would have contingency plans," Jason quips. "C'mon, lets go catch a panther by its tail," he says and disappears, presumably to head to the lower floor.
Tracy forces herself to get up and head after the others. "C'mon Cadena," she says. "I don't know if there was an implant to administer more sedative or not."
Downstairs, red alert klaxons are wailing and the blast doors are grinding shut. The robots have formed double lines on both sides of the corridor around the interrogation booth where Sasha was being held, and a team of humanoid robots have gone in to try to secure Moonlight and Sasha... But it looks as if the panther managed to free Sasha, and the two of them are holding off the robots. "Dammit, why doesn't this place have bigger ventilation shafts?!" yells Sasha in a fit of frustration.
Jason raises his hand and waves his fingers at Sasha as she and her cat fend off the robots. "Leaving so soon? We were just getting started," he quips. "RIU, cloak please and go high. I may need you to act as a prosimity relay for me ... or just blast the cat.."
"We're trying to get a line of sight on her," Eddie reports. "She and her cat have set themselves up by the door. They have destroyed the camera pickup so we don't have a good picture of where she is at this exact moment." It clicks. "GANGLOT would like to apologize for not realizing the presence of an invisible cat and taking appropriate measures against it."
The minidragon beeps! and zooms toward the cell.
As RIU flies, its scales slowly go glass-like, so it seems like a dragon-shaped shimmer in the air, and then the illusion refines itself so that it's completely invisible from all directions. The mini-dragon comes up to the entrance of the interrogation booth. There's a sort of airlock, but both doors are open at the moment and the cameras within the airlock itself have been busted by claw swipes. Gouged metal is evident everywhere.
Inari ignites her laser sword. She glances over at Jason and Tracy.
"She doesn't need her limbs to still be able to talk," Tracy notes to Inari.
Jason raises a finger. "Give me a moment," he tells the others and furrows his brow. "I'm going to give Sasha something to think about. Loudly."
The golden vixen grins toothily. "Or her cat?"
"I don't know what sort of psychic trauma killing a living Link would cause," Tracy says.
Inari frowns, but moves up so that she can see into the interrogation booth, her sword held forward in a guard position. She's clearly expecting them to make a break for it.
Suddenly there's a loud scream from inside the interrogation booth! "AAUGH! VOLUME DOWN VOLUME DOWN VOLUME DOWN QUIET SHUTDOWN STOP--" it appears that Sasha is yelling at someone unseen to turn off the noise in her head.
Moonlight yowls, bursting through the front line of robots, apparently looking for the source of distress to her Link!
Jason licks his finger and makes a 'tick' mark in the air. "I think she's a little distracted now," he tells the others. "So ... if the cat can be subdued..."
"Moonlight, I'm the one you want," Cadena says. "I'm the one who got your master into this mess."
The robots swivel, trying to track the fast-moving black cat! Eddie deploys one of its red-painted wings as a shield, and with a clack, raises a tesla cannon.
"Nothing up my sleeve," Jason quips as he actually pantomimes showing up his sleeve. "RIU, zap it."
The panther growls, turning its brightly burning eyes toward the white dog-man! It recognizes him, clearly.
From out of nowhere, a bright blue lightning bolt cracks, striking Moonlight! The cat staggers.
But the cat shakes off its distraction, then re-focuses with deadly intent on Cadena, as its master continues to scream at the imaginary voices to stop.
"I need to borrow this," Tracy tells one of the humanoid security bots, and grabs its Tesla rifle. "But if you want, please jump on the panther and try to slow it down?"
The robots unload fire! Brilliant blue light flies across the room, but the cat proves too agile for all but a grazing strike that raises sparks from its haunch. It snarls viciously!
The golden vixen readies her laser sword as the cat heads their way.
"Yes, master!" Cadena says, as if he were the one being addressed and not the robot. He makes a mad dash toward the panther once the barrage of tesla blasts clear.
The golden vixen growls as Cadena leaps past her! "Look out!" she yells. "I don't want to accidentally cut off your tail!" She holds back her strike, moving back to block its path to Jason.
Cadena dives onto the cat, staff held in one hand, and then he brings it underneath the panther's neck as part of his body-tackle. "Shoot! Shoot while I hold it still!"
Tracy points the Tesla rifle at Moonlight's head, sets it for a 3-round burst shot, and squeezes the trigger..
The blast strikes dead on just as Cadena is on the other side of the furball! The black panther is momentarily stilled, its fur smouldering from the heat of the micro-lightning strike. It is still grappled with the white dog, but much less coordinated than it should have been.
With a growl, Moonlight taps into some unknown reserve of power and struggles to burst free of Cadena!
The cat leaps away from the white dog's grasp, landing on its feet agilely and turned to face him.
And just that moment, Inari slices once, cleanly. FWOOM! Moonlight staggers, the corridor wall briefly visible through it... And then fades away.
"NOOooo!" yells Sasha. She falls upon her knees, the sound audible from here.
The robots bustle in to secure Sasha. In her dazed state, she puts up no resistance.
Jason blinks a few times. "Holy ... " he mutters, now wide-eyed. Still, he doesn't daer turn off Sasha's implant just yet, that woman is still dangerous. "Tell me when she's secure and I'll cut the noise," he calls out.
Eddie clicks. "Well! That was a very nice shot. One moment. Do you wish her re-sedated or kept awake for now? GANGLOT is still re-evaluating security protocol in light of this incident."
Cadena staggers to his feet, and looks over to Tracy.
"May I go see her?" Jason asks Eddie.
The golden vixen breathes hard as if she's finally achieved the wish of a lifetime... And then she lifts her laser sword in a salute and deactivates it. "Sayonara, Moonlight," she whispers.
"Of course, sir. She is being held by two robots in the interrogation room. They advise that she continues to be suffering some sort of audual trauma," Eddie responds.
Tracy is shaking and sweating, and happily hands over the rifle to the guard-bot. "HECATE," she says. "HECATE must have been projecting Moonlight, somehow, right?"
Jason slips by the guard bots to go and see Sasha up close. Once in the room, he heads over to her chair. He taps the side of his head, even though it's not really necessary, and cuts the horrific levels of sound he was pushing through her sub dermal communicator. "I don't play by the rules, either, Sasha," he remarks a bit dryly to the restrained woman. "You may have come here assuming that no real harm would befall you. Big mistake, that. I suggest you cooperate or ... well, next person Inari's blade will 'befriend' may be you."
Sasha breathes a little easier now that the incessant noise she was hearing has faded away. "You murdered..." she whispers. "All right, what is it you want?"
For now, Tracy just sits on the floor with her back to the wall next to Cadena. "You can really change back to normal?" she asks the altered canine. "How is that possible? Is it the same as with Moonlight? I mean, is there some AD altering reality just for your body?"
"No, you murdered. We acted in self defense," Jason says as he sits on the edge of a table in the interrogation room. "Just what is the obsession with the old simulation data? I'm fairly certain that you don't care about it because of Ms. Arcadia's daughter."
Cadena's eyes are closed, focusing. "Moonlight is not a creature of this world, and as such, not subject to the same rules," he says. He then opens his eyes, speaking in low tones to Tracy, unwilling to intrude upon the conversation with Sasha going on in the chamber. "I don't know how much we have in common, but I am reasonably certain that I am not the same as Moonlight. Moonlight may yet come back. If I am slain, I will not."
Sasha shakes her head. "I don't give a flying flip myself," she says. "But after the whole Convergence fiasco, when Blake stopped being such a good meal ticket to wealth and fame and power, I had to find another patron, you know? And when I encountered Ms. Arcadia, and mentioned it, she seemed all kinds of surprised... And then she had to have it. No questions asked. That's my kind of gig. I do 'no questions asked' things."
"Oddly, I actually think you're being honest there," Jason says and taps his fingers on the edge of the table. "But really, you ought to ask questions; it saves you from a lot of problems later. We don't have the simulation data. Someone else beat you to it."
Sasha stiffens. "You don't? Who does?"
"Ah, there leads to the realm of conjecture. What we do know is someone was using Blake's old core to run a new simulation," Jason remarks. "Someone, it seems, with grander plans than Blake ever had. Even I couldn't recover the original simulation data from the system, which is a bit of a feat."
"HECATE warned us that there was someone else out there with their own plans," Sasha says, distracted and looking into the distance, as if ignoring her restraining guards. "She called him or her Godslayer."
"Ask her who created HECATE!" Tracy yells down the hall.
"Yeah. That name sort of fits him," Jason remarks as he checks to see if Sasha is trying to connect to something with her implant. "And oh, yeah, Tracy wants to know who created HECATE and I would like to know why?"
Cadena puts his back to the corridor wall and slides down, landing with a "whump" on the floor beside Tracy.
"HECATE? I was there when they switched her own," Sasha rambles, her face leaden, dull, as if the emotional shock of losing Midnight has finally begun to soak in. "She was a new Q-Core, fresh out of the Dantech packing crate. By then, Ms. Arcadia had all the data I could remember, about how Blake did his thing, sending us into his sim at Programmable Matter, then at Avatars when they bought the company out... And how her daughter was sick, boo hoo, and she needed the DNA they'd recorded of her to splice back into her, so they could work out a cure. And then she told Hecate, 'I want my daughter back healthy and alive. Make it happen.'"
"I've never lost Midnight before," Sasha whispers. "Not since the early days, and she always came back because it was just a game. I wonder if she'll come back again?"
"How'd she come here in the first place?" Tracy calls.
"So, you don't care at all about what happened to her daughter?" Jason asks. "So, outside of money, what exactly did you want out of this?" the question makes Jason shrug a bit. "I don't honestly know. It is theoretically possible, but not knowing how she was here in the first place, well."
Listening to the conversation, Cadena, staring upward as his head leans back against the wall, whispers to Tracy, "I don't suppose it would be a good idea for me to get a chance to say a few things to Ms. Knightley once the interrogation is done with, would it?"
Sasha lifts her head at Tracy's voice. A bit of irritation creeps into her voice. "How does it usually happen? You call to your Avatar, you form a picture of her in your head, she seems so real that you can reach out and touch her... And there she is. Except when they've been badly hurt. Then you can feel their light so dim, so far away..."
"And do you still feel Moonlight?" Jason asks curiously.
"Yes... Maybe... I don't know," Sasha says. "Maybe I'm hearing a whisper of her. Maybe it's just my wishful thinking."
"Well, it probably all depends on how much you want her to return," Jason offers, then shrugs a bit. "But think on how you're feeling right now. This is how you made others feel when you had your clueless flunkies attack civilians and hurt or killed them. Now, I don't suppose you had any contact with my counterpart, hmm?"
"Your counterpart?" Sasha frowns, diverted from her reverie. "You mean that simulacrum of you? Is that thing around and still kicking?"
"Well, that answers that question. Tracy, Cadena, Inari, any of you have questions you want to ask?" Jason calls out.
"Is she willing to be a witness against Penny Arcadia?" Tracy asks.
Cadena reaches up and seems a bit surprised to realize that he's still wearing a VR collar. He has to fumble a bit with the controls, as they're aligned a little differently to accommodate his altered form, but he calls up an interface and scans through crime and fatality reports on news sites, related to the Face Reality incidents.
"I have a self-preservation instinct! It even works," Sasha says. "So no, I'm not testifying against someone with as much money as Ms. Arcadia."
Tracy gets and goes to the door to look in on Sasha. She just stares at her for a moment.
Cadena slowly gets back up onto his feet, using his staff as support, to accompany his master. He slowly walks over to the entrance to the chamber, standing next to Tracy.
The dark-haired woman looks back sullenly. "What? Have I got something on my face?"
The golden vixen lays her hand on Jason's and squeezes it gently, slipping her fingers through his. The laser sword is still holstered at her side.
"Was any of it worth it, in the end?" Tracy asks Sasha.
"You might want to reconsider that," Jason notes. He's about to say more, but Inari's squeeze seems to stop him and instead he gives Inari a questioning look.
"Is life ever worth it?" asks Sasha in return. "You gamble with high stakes, sometimes you win big... Sometimes you lose." Her eyes study Tracy. "You could be a gambler yourself, kid. But you aren't yet. You aren't willing to bet high enough."
Inari murmurs to Jason, "Now we've finally beaten her down, taken away her hole card. Why do I actually feel a bit of pity for her?"
"I can thank you for that," Tracy says. "You've been a shining, bad example to me for seven years now. Hurricane Sasha - lots of noise and damage, but no real impact on anything. Enjoy your nap." With that, Tracy turns and walks away.
Sasha's lips twist into a frown as she watches Tracy leave, but she says nothing.
"Probably because she's been trying to fill a hole within herself through all these attempts at 'winning', and never really filling that hole. What she thinks she wants isn't what she needs. And ... I think we've gotten all we can out of her," Jason says as he pushes himself off the table edge he had been leaning on and heads for the door. "bit of advice for you, Sasha," he adds as he and Inari leave, "It isn't about winning or losing. It's about the people in your life; they are what make it worth it."
Cadena stays at the doorway, glancing over to Eddie.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-09-10_cadenatracy.htmlAfter the adrenaline has worn off and all scrapes and cuts treated in the aftermath of Sasha's interrogation and escape attempt, Tracy returned to the guest room, where she sat in one of the chairs in silence for a bit - until the door chimed. "Come in," she muttered, loud enough for the security system to hear and open the door.
As the door slides open, Cadena pokes his head in, ears swiveling as he surveys the room and sniffs the air. He is still humanoid, still clad in robes (torn in spots) and Avatars-styled body armor ... and clutching a re-chilled energy drink in one hand. "You forgot your drink in the observation room," he says as he steps on in.
"Oh," Tracy says, pulling her legs up onto the chair. "Thanks for.. why would you even remember something like that with all that's happened?" she suddenly asks. "Is it.. because you're Brother Cadena now?"
Cadena's ears flush. "I'm still conscious of who I am. I've been trying to be like Brother Cadena, but absent the context of an obvious roleplaying environment, I'm not in immediate danger of lapsing into a lack of awareness of our actual surroundings." He brings the drink to Tracy. "Actually, I was tracking you by scent, and took a detour back to the observation room before I got a solid lead - and your drink was still there. Eventually I came to my senses and asked an attendant to just tell me where you were, but ... no sense in leaving the drink behind."
"Oh, so.. do I smell okay?" Tracy asks, taking the beverage. "I feel pretty burnt out right now. I guess you aren't used to asking for directions because.. well, you don't talk to just anyone when you're White Cadena in the real world, maybe."
Back in the Real World, humanoid Cadena looks a bit less impressive than he did in the virtual realms. There are no drifting animated chains, the blue "chain tattoo" patterns in his facial fur are nothing more than faint streaks now, and his overly wild "mane" is unruly, failing to hold conveniently in place what with gravity and air currents to contend with. He brushes back some stray tufts getting in the way of his eyes. "It wasn't really a problem once upon a time ... but I've had some trouble adapting and prioritizing. Speaking of ... do we still have three rifts in reality threatening to tear apart our world, in the heart of Avatars Headquarters? I'd just assumed that you, Jason, and Inari had somehow fixed all that ... but I realized that I'd never actually found out for certain whether we're out of the worst of it yet."
"Atlas shut down the Convergence," Tracy explains. "He sent us back to the real world, and then it was just the core room again. The AIs were all fighting, and had BLACK 'cornered' in one core, but his minions were destroying some of those and.. he'd converted a big chunk of the room into armor for himself. I.." Here Tracy chokes for a moment. "He had robots. There were a lot of robots to fight, and a mage with a giant spider.. and just some Empire guys.."
"Anyway, BLACK is gone," Tracy says. "It was an ugly battle."
"I'm ... I assumed you'd prevailed, since you're here, but I feel surprised that BLACK is just /gone/," Cadena says, giving up fussing with his mane/hair for a moment. He looks worried. "Did something go wrong, however? What about ... where did Fuseli go?"
"He.. took a bad hit, and when BLACK fell the last bits of Convergence faded out, and Fuseli went along with my Tracer overlay, and Mike started turning back into a human. But it was fading before then, too. I got lucky.. my armor still managed to stop two bullets from breaking my skin, but I have bruises," Tracy notes. "I shot one of the men," she adds somberly.
Cadena frowns at that last comment, walking over to Tracy, and putting a hand on her shoulder. "If you're concerned about that, please don't be hard on yourself. We've tried very hard to find peaceful resolution to these conflicts, but we've been facing life-and-death struggles against real dangers. We can only work with the tools that we have."
"Maybe," Tracy says, and smiles at the friendly gesture, at least for a moment. "And then there's Mark, who got pulled into this because of Sasha, who was following orders from an AI.. and all for nothing! Chasing me, causing all that damage and injury.. and I was worthless as a hostage because the data Mrs. Arcadia needs isn't even here anymore. I should call her and let her know."
Cadena nods. "I had considered writing a message to Ms. Arcadia, but I would want to run it past you or your mother first." He frowns. "Since we don't have the data - and I'm not clear how recent a development this was - I've been trying to ponder alternatives, but they're all long shots."
"I remember my parents talking about it back when they introduced us," Tracy says. "They were going to turn all the North Bend data over, but when they went to get it.. the core had been hacked. Mom thought Jason did it. But we also met Mike then, which means the kidnapping plan was already going into motion.."
Tracy finally pulls the cap on her drink and sips some of it.
Cadena puts a hand to his head. "So ... I should have already known the information wasn't there, before hitching a ride back to Avatars HQ with Sasha. I could have avoided some more headaches." He sighs, shaking his head. "I'm ... really not on top of things." He ponders this, and brushes hair out of his face. "You wouldn't happen to have a spare hair band or something similar on hand, would you? Reality is proving inconvenient for my new look."
"Reality is inconvenient in lots of ways," Tracy says, and just takes the band from her own hair and offers it to the canine. "I really thought confronting Sasha would feel better."
Cadena looks abashed, but then takes the hair-band, stretches it around, wrestles with his mane/hair, and finally forces a large amount of it into a sort of pony-tail arrangement flopping over his back, though some stray strands still dangle in front of his ears. "Thank you," he says, finally getting it into a semblance of order. "Ah yes. And about confronting Sasha. I went and confronted her some more. Your mother will no doubt be reviewing the details, eventually. I verified that ... yes, it was my fault that Moonlight got in. Moonlight was in the back of Margaret's hover-car, up on the back rise, so she wouldn't be depressing the upholstery. It's a wonder Sasha ever bothered pulling a gun on me. Moonlight could have easily gotten the drop on me, and that would've been the end; I had absolutely no idea we weren't alone in there."
"Hard to threaten someone with an invisible cat.. and it would have let you know about Moonlight rather than given the cat a chance to sneak in to the building," Tracy reasons.
"I wonder though.." the girl mutters. "Gotta ask the docbot to do a telomere scan or whatever on Sasha," she says more clearly. "If there's something wrong with Inari, then maybe Sasha is in the same condition."
"Ah yes," Cadena says. "A very good point. She didn't try to kill me immediately, after all," he adds, nodding. "Speaking of Moonlight, I don't think she's actually dead, and I hope you will not object to the fact that I've offered to use my finding abilities to recover her from the virtual realms ... in exchange for certain conditions from Sasha. Sasha hasn't promised anything yet, but she seemed to be amenable to the idea of making herself a little more useful, especially considering that the data she was after isn't even here. The details of that, of course, aren't for me to decide, since ... wait, something's wrong with Inari?"
"Remember, in the infirmary?" Tracy asks. "Before you let us know about Sasha," she reminds Cadena. "They put up the privacy screen so we couldn't eavesdrop.."
"I'd assumed that you were all in the infirmary because you'd been in a fight," Cadena says. "Your more recent statement regarding scans made me worry that there was something more substantial going on."
"Well, yeah, we had just been in a fight, but the docbot said something about Inari's telomeres being uneven - that some where shorter than others or something. Which would mean some of her cells were reproducing faster than others, or.. something was 'off' when she was separated from Akiko. I dunno, and I don't know how to ask her about it either. She intimidates me."
Cadena blinks. "Separated from Akiko...." He looks a bit distant. "Ah ... oh yes. I put in a request for something to be dropped by wherever you were recuperating, since I have no idea where I'm going to be anytime soon, and I was planning on visiting you. It's a prop for another one of my wild goose chases. A guitar, I think, or whatever they can find that closely approximates one." He paces, frowning.
"A guitar," Tracy says. "To see if you know how to play it? I haven't seen a real guitar in ages. What are you going to try and play though?" She sips from her drink again, but doesn't seem to be particularly enervated by it.
"Anything," Cadena says. "Black Cadena will probably want to strangle me for it, but I'll probably do an old Erasure tune first, followed by Margaret's favorite Kitten Fiasco number, and something from Fairy Punk." He blinks, shaking his head. "Black Cadena is not real. Sorry. I keep talking like it's a distinct entity. Very bad habit. It doesn't work that way. You can't just split an imaginary personality out into its own unique neural template."
"He's not independent." Cadena insists, sitting down on a chair and sighing. "Honestly, I didn't have this much trouble before. It's all this ... reality-bending that's going on that has been making me entertain these crazy ideas."
"Whoa, hold on a minute," Tracy says, blinking. "If you play this guitar, is it going to bring out a new personality we haven't seen before?"
Cadena shakes his head. "We're safe and sound back in the Real World. There's no good reason for that. The only real danger there'd be of that would be if you flat-out told me that my assigned role is 'Black Cadena,' and even then, it'd work a lot better if I actually looked like the role, or it fit the setting."
"I can command you to.. be someone different?" Tracy asks, looking horrified at the thought. "It's creepy enough that I can give you orders at all you know - especially when you're standing up and wearing pants and can play guitar.."
"Margaret did that all the time," Cadena says. "Whenever we played a new game, she assigned my character. Sometimes one of her friends would make suggestions. The 'personality profiles' I've described to you are just ... conglomerates of some of the recurring themes. The differences between White Cadena and Brother Cadena might seem fairly subtle to you, aside from the body, because, well, they're only variations on a theme, after all."
"I'd never be able to do something like that," Tracy claims, shaking her head. "That's fine for a robot or android, but.. not for a person."
"Well," Cadena says, "when I was introduced to the Arcadia household, it was with the cover story that I was just a prototype 'Real-Avatar' companion. I didn't flip out between different roles. I had my role, and I played it. It wasn't until Margaret died - or went into suspension - that I really frayed around the edges. I managed to get most of that back under control, and your mother thought I had recovered enough for another assignment. Then ... things started falling apart again, and my point of reference became confused. I'm afraid you've seen me at my worst I've been, for years."
"Well, that proves you're a person then," Tracy claims, raising her drink as if in toast. "It's not about self-awareness, but self-delusion. That's the real sign of person-ness, I think."
Cadena shakes his head. "The worst of it - and I'm trying to get a grip on this - is that I've been falling prey to a tendency to substitute wishful thinking for rational processes. It's been tempting, when it seemed that reality was malleable enough that maybe if I latched onto an idea and insisted upon it loudly enough - and people agreed - then it just might be true. And, really, that's kind of how things worked when roleplaying with Margaret."
"Yeah, that makes you pretty human," Tracy says. "It's how we cope with.. events that.." She ends up waving a hand. "I did it, to get me through all the bad times - but that bubble got popped while talking to Sasha."
Cadena blinks. "I ... I don't quite follow you. What do you mean by that?"
"Sasha.." Tracy mutters, then says, "See, when I was eleven, she had an affair with my dad, and my parents got divorced - and then Sasha just vanished. To me.. it was like that was her only aim; to turn my life upside down. I was a mess after that. It was like I was just in the way, or didn't matter to my parents. Then a couple years later, the first Convergence stuff goes down, and there's Sasha again - and my house got burned down, almost everything of sentimental value I had.. Anyway, I deluded myself to cope. To not just be a bystander, or collateral damage, I imagined Sasha was my nemesis - it was all personal for her, somehow. She was out to get me. Calling the Wild Hunt on me, the invasion of where I lived by monsters.. it all fed into that. But in the end, I really didn't matter at all. It wasn't personal, Sasha wasn't after me. It was just random stuff and my Mom's position all along."
"All the crap I went through, or put myself through - it just didn't mean anything at all," Tracy concludes.
Cadena sits back. "I see." He frowns. "Yes ... yes, I can see what you mean. That would feel like a real slap in the face. Even if terrible things are happening, there's a certain strength you can draw from the idea that you're resisting evil, rather than it just being random happenstance. But even so, you're not just a bystander anymore. I've been abashed at how little you've needed any 'protecting' from me. You strike me as quite the capable young lady, and I hope your mother appreciates just how well you've adapted to the crazy circumstances of these past few days."
Cadena grins. "In a way, I was a bit disappointed that Renard wasn't actually Black Cadena, my very own personal nemesis - so personal that it's most often inside my own head."
"Yeah, but in 'normal life' I'm just a wishy-washy easily depressed teenager with self-esteem issues like just about every other teenager on the planet," Tracy notes. "The crazy stuff is the exception."
"So what do we do now that we know better?" Tracy asks, seriously.
"Well," Cadena says, "there was something I wanted to share with you regarding my concerns about Inari."
The door chimes. "Package delivery from Product Prototype Department!" comes a robotic, cheery voice over the speaker. "Delivery by request of Cadena."
Cadena bolts up out of the chair. "I'm actually here!" he calls out. He regains his composure, and trots over to the door with a little less undue haste.
"Is that the guitar?" Tracy asks.
A moment later, and Tracy's question appears to be answered in the affirmative. Cadena stands there, holding a bizarre, Avatars-ified musical instrument that puts the "axe" back into ... well ... axe. He thanks the robot courier, then comes back in, holding the device gingerly. "Okay ... I'd say this prototype is a long way away from being appropriate for general consumption. I'm not about to find out if those edges are really sharp." He opens an accompanying container and pulls out a strap, and then digs out some picks.
"It looks like some sort of weapon, certainly," Tracy notes, her face betraying some trepidation at hearing Cadena try to play the thing.
"Hmm," Cadena says, as he checks over the components. "It looks like it has an onboard practice speaker, but the amp is pretty weak. Still, it should suffice for experimental purposes." He tries on the strap, then frowns. "Really, I'm not sure what this says about much of anything. Ah ... right. You wouldn't happen to have a stun gun, would you?"
"Yes," Tracy says, and retrieves her stunner. "Uh.. why did you ask?"
"Just in case Black Cadena acts up," Cadena says. "I mean, it's not going to happen. That's just imaginary and inside my head. But ... so many strange things have been happening lately that should just be imaginary. After all...." He holds up the pick and flexes his pinky finger. "I've got hands now, after my imaginary Brother Cadena acted up and took over from my imaginary White Cadena. Granted, that was in another universe, but ... okay, okay. No Erasure, no Fairy Punk, no Kitten Fiasco. I'll play some other sort of oldie that Black Cadena won't find offensive. That is, if Black Cadena were real, which it isn't."
The dog-humanoid takes a deep breath. "Just a few chords to start with. As a fair warning, I'm bound to be a bit rusty."
"You haven't been drinking any of my mom's coffee, have you?" Tracy asks, sounding a bit worried.
The dog-humanoid is rusty at first, yes. He struggles to reposition his fingers, and keeps snagging the wrong frets with his claws. He adjusts his fingers differently, and tries again. His ears flush. Then he manages a few simple chords. He nods faintly, and taps a foot.
"That wasn't too bad," Tracy says encouragingly.
"I think I need a beat," Cadena says. He pauses a moment, tucking the pick in between a couple of frets to free up a hand, as he activates his VR collar and conjures up a holographic display. He fiddles with the "tooth-link," which discovers the guitar's on-board processor, and then he searches through a few titles, restricting it to "Oldies." Under the "Aughts," he finds a title that catches his eye. "Right," he says. "When I saw Inari at the airport, for some reason I thought of this song." He cues it up. The on-board amp provides a drumbeat and some exotic, vaguely Indian-sounding accompaniment.
Tiny holo-lights pop up, then fizzle out at Cadena's first efforts. Once he gets a tune going, they linger and dance about the guitar, all colors of the rainbow.
Cadena mouths words, but doesn't bother singing. It seems to take enough of his concentration to stick to the song. It's a nice, easy riff, slow and catchy - no crazy guitar solos here, to be sure, but just a simple warm-up song.
Cadena finishes up his mini-performance, then ... hastily turns off the guitar, tucks away the pick, and slips off the strap, setting the instrument aside. He gasps. "Okay. I'm still me. No need to stun me or anything, praise the Light. No magical transformations or other craziness."
"So.. that was from a band-game you played with Margaret?" Tracy asks.
"Yes," Cadena says. "I might even still have the session log around somewhere. I ... I haven't done any data house-cleaning since then. Margaret played tambourine on pro. She had me play bass guitar, as 'White Knight,' but Daphne thought I was bringing down our score. See, it's a song-battle game, and it's not just about hitting the notes - it's about doing the moves, or, as Daphne put it, I needed more 'swagger.' My White Knight character definitely did not swagger, so she tried to come up with the antithesis of stick-in-the-mud boring White Cadena. That's really where Black Cadena started."
"Who is Daphne?" Tracy asks. "A human friend?"
"Daphne is one of Margaret's friends from Avatars," Cadena explains. "She played an Augment, Fire-Type, in-game, with the Phoenix Bow. She always played a fairy type, or whatever she could play that was as close to one as possible, whatever game she was in. She was a veteran of Galaxy Metal Epic ... actually, back when it was still just Galaxy Metal. I think she's a grandmother - though her apparent in-game age didn't reflect it."
"She can actually play electric violin," Cadena notes, "and always played Galaxy Metal on pro. I think her real-life husband is a musician as well, but we never saw him in-game. When I saw that sorceress and the vampire in the tower, my wishful thinking got the better of me, and when I heard the sorceress calling the vampire 'honey,' I did some logic leaps and thought for a bit that it was Daphne under another character. But, of course not - no fairy wings."
"A fairy? She didn't act like Cait did she?" Tracy asks, referring to her Gloaming friend. "Cait came through Atlas's gate with us, and fought against the BLACK until the Convergence effect faded too much."
Cadena shakes his head. "No, not quite like Cait. She always played a life-sized ... er, I mean, full-sized humanoid type, just with 'fairy' trappings of some sort. Not really the roguish type. Actually, fairies were pretty popular with several of Margaret's friends, come to think of it. Er ... oh, wait. The Convergence effect? What happened to them? Did they simply vanish, or did ... did they break down?" He looks horrified at the thought.
"The VR link broke and the.. character.. went into idle mode," Tracy notes. "So she wasn't linked up when it finally started to dissolve."
"No ... no, that's not good," Cadena says. "I don't know exactly why, but because of the object-oriented nature of the game, it might not be possible for her to sign into her character again. Even with direct mod help, there could be alterations to her character." He sighs, shaking his head. "What am I talking about? I should be grateful they didn't experience that sensation, and that it's just a game for them."
"Does that mean something might have happened to Tracer and Fuseli too?" Tracy asks, sounding worried. "They were.. independent of me since the first Convergence."
"I don't know," Cadena says. "I'm going to have to return to the virtual realm, one way or another, regardless. I need to fulfill my obligations to the Shadows for their help in rescuing Yap- er, I mean ... well, that and I need to do a search on Moonlight, and to find out if there's any link to the North Bend simulation that my 'finding' ability can trace through the networks. Of course, we can find out if Fuseli is all right ... and whether Tracer ..." He blinks, shaking his head. "I'm having trouble sorting out how that works, but I'll do what I can to help you put things back right."
"Finding the North Bend data is more important right now," Tracy notes. "Pretty sure Dantech has it.. unless Jason Zero is playing them too. We really need to find him and find out what's going on. But our Jason confirmed that Dantech owns most of the Zeus project."
Cadena nods. "For various reasons, you're quite right. I rather doubt that Dantech would make it that easy for me to be able to find it with my 'finding' ability ... but I suppose I should try at the next opportunity, just to cover all the bases." He stands back up from where he'd been putting the guitar and its accessories back away into the box (marked with "Prototype" and "Property of Avatars LLC" on it) that it had arrived in. "In addition to stopping whatever crazy schemes Jason Zero has in mind, and finding Ms. Penny Arcadia's genetic data, I might have an opportunity to investigate more into Inari's nature, insofar as it might help shed some light on why I am the way I am."
"You think there's a connection?" Tracy asks. "Between you and Inari that is?"
"For now, it is just another one of my wild, unsubstantiated, pulled-out-of-the-air theories," Cadena says. "At the time of the Fracture, when the region of Convergence retreated, and the clean-up operations began, there were several creatures left behind, who did not dissolve into black goo or smoke, or revert into other forms once left in the Real World proper. I was one of those creatures, born of the chaos, yet not returned to it once the madness ended. I know little of the other creatures; they were embodiments of Avatars, as I was in my original form. I heard only snippets about them - gossip shared unwittingly in my presence. They were, more or less, fairly unstable in mind, but stable in form."
"Do you think it's because you carried a.. piece.. of the WHITE?" Tracy asks. "Could those others also be pieces?"
"I can't rule it out," Cadena says, "but if it's the case, the SPARK hasn't shared that information with me, and seemed to give the impression that I was special in that regard. However, I must remind myself that it is the WHITE's nature to make every hero feel as if he or she is special. It might not be out of character for the SPARK to omit such a detail."
"Maybe you're the sane one because of the SPARK," Tracy notes. "Although, now that you know about the SPARK.. you seem a little less stable.."
"I'd like to think I'm getting better," Cadena says. "But then ... I'm hardly an unbiased observer. In any case, there is another possibility I can entertain as to why I might be 'high-resolution,' more or less. That would entail the involvement, however inadvertent, of Mr. Edwards."
"None of the people I know of that were caught in the 'upgrade' had a White Cadena Avatar though," Tracy notes. "I mean, you don't remember who your Link was in the game, right?"
Cadena shakes his head. "No, I do not. However, that is not really a concern, because there is no way that I could have truly been an Avatar. Just as Inari is not, and could not have been an Avatar."
"So.. someone created you just then?" Tracy asks. "It wasn't an accident or fallout or anything? But.. the WHITE must have been behind it, right?"
"It's hard to define just what is an 'accident," Cadena says. "After all, the behavior of the ADs has often been outside of their expected parameters - and anything they've been responsible for, from a certain point of view, is indeed an accident. In any case, I believe that the process cobbled together by Mr. Edwards - bereft of proper restrictive protocols (since, after all, he was doing a hack) - and left on the system (since there presumably was no time to scrub it all out) - was utilized by someone or something else."
"Well, we know Jason Zero - or someone - made a version that converts a virtual being into a material one," Tracy points out. "That's how the Empire of Stars was able to infiltrate Avatars."
"It could even have been more than one party," Cadena notes, nodding at the mention of Jason Zero. "For instance, perhaps the SPARK needed a ride into the Real World, and I was put together from a convenient jumble, and a bit of symbolism. The White Cadejo of myth - upon which White Cadena is based - is a protector of travelers. How appropriate it would be, therefore, for the SPARK to call upon a White Cadena to serve as the protector for its journey into the Real World."
"However, a White Cadena is not sapient, as far as AI processes go. It is only sentient at best," Cadena notes. "You cannot flip a flag or attach a process and suddenly grant speech and rationality to an Avatar. They are meant to have an empathic link to their masters, but there were specific design constraints put into them. They are not meant to be self-aware. You can't hold philosophical debates with them. They don't question their own existence or their purpose in life. They show concern when you're hurt, they express joy at your successes, they do funny, cute little things when it seems appropriate, and so forth, but they are not sapient."
"Ever wonder how those links work in the game?" Tracy asks. "I mean.. you have an 'observer' copy of Margaret's mind in your head. How do you simulate empathy without.. having a model of the person's mind you're trying to empathize with? I mean.. I'm pretty sure that's how humans relate to one another. So.. you could have been given the template of a player who had a White Cadena to use as your.. AI-seed? I don't know how they actually grow AIs. It's a big secret."
Cadena nods. "I've wondered at that possibility. What if there was a player who was logged in at the time of the Convergence? I've heard gossip and rumors at Avatars LLC, and hints of some debate regarding some of my fellow ... 'Real-Avatars' ... suggesting ideas that some of them might have 'imprints' of players who ... actually, I'm not sure, whether they went mysteriously missing, or died while connected to the game." He shudders. "My intellect, such as it is, I believe was created by drawing upon one or more human neural templates. I don't know who those persons might be. I have no 'memories' that might help me to pin that down. Apparently it's not as simple as just seeing how many White Cadenas there are, and who was signed on at the time. With Inari, at least, I think the source of the neural template isn't such a mystery."
"Died while.." Tracy begins to say, then stops and looks alarmed. "When we came through the portal from the Gloaming, I thought.. I maybe heard a scream. It was distant.."
Cadena nods, looking sober. "I have been trying to look through some records related to the time of that attack on your residential building. After speaking with Sasha, I fear that ... I may be responsible for one or more deaths of persons who thought they were just playing a game." His brow furrows. "I have ... concerns ... about the nature of this game." He blinks a few times.
"Mike was there, he shut off their connections," Tracy notes. "That's when they collapsed.. the security footage didn't show anyone dying though.. uh.."
Cadena shakes his head. "I haven't found anything on that incident. I've only found a few reports about the activities of Face Reality in general, and I've hardly had enough time to make much sense of it. Sasha wasn't ... well, I don't think she was interested in shedding light on that aspect of things. She seems to have a detached view of reality. I think she was numbed to her relationships with fellow human beings from her time in the North Bend simulation."
"She wasn't all warmth and cuddles before she met Blake," Tracy notes coldly. "She used people. If anything, she's upset that she got used herself."
Cadena shakes his head. "No, I don't mean that Sasha was innocent before running into Blake. She brought plenty into this. However, I think that she's having trouble adapting to the Real World. I can't say that she would do anyone any good if she could adapt fully to it, but I think she still bears mental wounds. I'm not saying this to try to prompt you to pity her. She's ... whatever she's been through, there are still certain lines you just shouldn't cross, and even if something pushed you to cross them, you had to have been inclined in that direction in the first place. Akiko went through the same travails - perhaps even worse - and yet she hasn't resorted to terrorism."
"I still worry about becoming Sasha myself sometimes," Tracy admits, screwing up her lips. "Akiko.. she works for Ms. Arcadia. Should be able to help us contact her, right?"
The dog-humanoid flinches. "I ... seem to have missed that connection. In any case, I don't expect much difficulty in contacting Ms. Arcadia. I am supposed to be here to get the North Bend data for her. She'll be expecting a progress report, and I expect her to be very interested. As for Akiko ... I ... right. My point. I had one, honest I did, somewhere in this mess."
"Well, can I talk to her when you call her?" Tracy asks. "I.. want to help. And maybe Ms. Arcadia can help us recover that data too, and find out what Dantech is up to with Zeus."
"I have every intention of your supervision when I contact her," Cadena says. "I am very concerned about balancing my priorities when dealing with matters that affect the Trudeaus as well as the Arcadias. My obligations to you come first and foremost."
"Now then, Akiko and Inari," Cadena says. "This is mere speculation on my part, but I think it is bolstered by my own knowledge, such as it is, of Avatar sentience. I don't think that Inari is really an Avatar given speech. I think that Inari is a sort of mental construct, a role, built from Akiko, in the course of the many iterations and brain-washing techniques employed by Blake Forester to try to force his 'test subjects' to play the roles he wished - drowning out actual memories with the 'noise' of repeated, slightly varied realities under his deliberate control."
"In other words, she was calved off of Akiko's mind?" Tracy asks. "I can see that. Even I.. well, Tracer and Treasa were my personas for.. being competent and fearless."
"That's what I suspect," Cadena says. "My certainty on this has been shaken by HECATE'S insistence that I am somehow holding Margaret's 'Observer Soul' with me. I do not know exactly what this means. However, I can imagine that Mr. Edwards could have provided a key with his unique ability to bypass all protocol restrictions and cobble together system functions as he saw fit. He created a process that was meant to 'separate' Inari from Akiko. Somehow, it created a new, separate entity, using Akiko's mind - in whole, or somehow in part - and did this according to Mr. Edwards's specifications."
"You make playing god sound scary and magical," Tracy points out.
"Yes, I suppose I do," Cadena says. "I think it is rather scary. I at least console myself with my supposition that the system was incapable of instantly putting together a fully-formed intelligence, fitting every specification perfectly, without having to take crib notes from Creation - or, that is, tracing off of an existing mental template. Even the entities within the game who seemed to come into self-awareness did so gradually, or so I gathered from RIU's records."
"The GREY broke itself up into individual minds in the game, instead of remotely controlling them all," Tracy says. "At least, that's what it seemed like, from RIU's recordings of beginnings of the Fracture. The WHITE did similar, at least with you and SPARK. And the people coming through from the Empire of Stars seem to have minds of their own.. if an inability to properly use makeup."
Cadena hmms. "Alas, I know very little of that. But ... where this might relate to Inari's current situation, I believe that RIU's records indicated that Akiko Summers had a peculiar body makeup. I don't know the proper term for it, but I got the gist that her cells contained 'redundant' DNA, if that means anything. There was the DNA that her body used to heal itself, but she also had additional code that served no purpose except to serve as a template for the system to use when reconstructing her body into her various forms - human, humanoid, large fox, or even larger fox. The system couldn't just 'swap' models, because Akiko was a living creature, with a real brain. However ... I have no idea what happened to that 'redundant' data after the process run by Mr. Edwards."
"After all," Cadena notes, "there was no reason to do another scan, or for RIU to take notes of it. But maybe there are bits of that 'redundant' genetic code floating around in Akiko's body - or Inari's."
"Speculation," Cadena quickly adds. "Nothing more."
"Inari can still change shape though," Tracy says, sitting up. "She was a giant fox form throughout the Fracture event. Then she changed into the humanoid one on her own, inside the Convergence zone. So.. what if Jason didn't really alter the DNA? I mean, it'd have been a lot easier to just set Akiko's epigenome to only use the human DNA, and Inari's to only use the fox-monster stuff, right?"
"I don't think it would be possible for the DNA to inherently provide the ability to change shape," Cadena says. "The sheer amount of energy required ... even if it were possible, the heat generated would burn flesh! At least, I've heard someone saying that proved that sci-fi shows with nanotech making shapeshifting possible were nonsense. But when there's magic involved ... who knows? Perhaps the code is still there, and exposure to an area of quantum uncertainty allows for shifting from one to the other. Perhaps, if Akiko were in an area of quantum uncertainty, she could change forms. I ..." Cadena clamps his mouth shut. "Well, I suppose that's at least one area of my wild speculation that could actually be tested, at least."
"Er ... speaking of shapes," Cadena says, "I suppose ... hmm. The SPARK seems to indicate that if I want to, I can return to my previous form. If I do so, I'm fairly certain it will alter my personality profile at least subtly. I'm also not certain whether I'd be able to shift back. However ... being humanoid does make things a little bit awkward if I'm to be your pet dog."
"Sasha still had her Link, even in the real world," Tracy notes quietly. "And after this is over.. assuming we succeed, wouldn't you go back to Margaret?"
Cadena mulls this over. "Sasha's Link is different, somehow. Moonlight was not unstable in the 'black goo' sense, yet was apparently unreal to a degree. Upon being significantly wounded, she simply vanished, and she left behind no trace - no blood, not even any hairs, and I couldn't even detect any of her smell on my person, despite wrestling her scant moments earlier. I, on the other hand ... well ..." He sniffs at his arm, testingly. "I seem to be quite real, for better or for worse. I don't think we're quite of the same sort. And ... really, my assignment, one way or another, depends upon your mother."
"I think maybe HECATE was keeping Moonlight stable," Tracy notes. "Why didn't the Face Reality attackers turn into goo immediately? It felt that happening when you opened the portal for Mike and I stepped through. Something had to be keeping them stable."
Cadena hmms and nods. "That's a very good point. I ... have a lot to learn about this yet, before I can be certain about any of my theories, honestly."
"Cadena, what is keeping you stable?" Tracy asks. "You just pointed out that real shape-changing can't work in the real world. When the Convergence faded, Mike turned back to normal, Jason's armor vanished and I became.. me. So what's keeping you like you are now?"
"That, I do not know," Cadena says. "I have been acting under the assumption that forces acted on me, resculpting my physical form into this one. The assertion by the SPARK that I can change back, here, in the Real World, is ... actually a bit disturbing to me. I suppose that nothing is truly 'permanent,' and that if something can be changed, it can theoretically be changed back. However, by what sort of force? I simply do not know, and I don't think I can phrase my questions in such a way that the SPARK could give a meaningful answer. What I do know is that I can bleed, I can be hungry, and I am definitely going to have to take a bath ... though while I was within the virtual realm, it seems that such details were greatly glossed over."
Cadena shudders as he looks over his hem. "I do hope that if I change back, and I don't have this robe with me, I won't find out that in my other form, this robe corresponds to my skin, or something else vital. Hmm. This staff came out of nowhere as well. I suppose I had best keep good care of these items."
"Maybe.. well, let's hold off on any experimenting in the real world," Tracy offers. "We'll probably have to reenter VR at some point to find Jason Zero, so.. save any tries at changing for then, or back at the Convergence zone in California, or.. well, HECATE might be able to help you.. if she's not already doing so. You're an ally of Ms. Arcadia as far as she knows, after all."
Cadena nods. "I should probably visit the on-site laundry facility and tend to my attire. I'll try not to get too distracted by all the fabric softeners. I ... just can't get enough of those. The smells." He shakes his head, snapping out of it. "I'll draft a message for Ms. Arcadia, but forward it to you for your approval before sending it. After that...." He looks uncertain.
"Alright," Tracy says. "Should see about dinner. I think I can keep something down now. And I'm sure I'm more tired than I feel at the moment.."
"Yes," Cadena says. "Food would be good. And then ... ah ... I think as long as I'm in my present form, I should see about requisitioning a separate room to stay in, at least until we get this sorted out. It would be awkward for me to try to sleep at the foot of the bed."
"You think that's awkward," Tracy says, standing up and stretching her back. "Just wait until you need to use the toilet.."
Cadena arcs an eyeridge, and gets up, gathering up the package holding the guitar prop. "Aha. I suppose I'll grab something in the cafeteria after laundry. Perhaps if I act normal, no one will think something's amiss." With that, he bows to Tracy. "I wish you a pleasant evening, master, and a good rest. I'll see you in the morning." He heads out.
"I never expected dogs to be so philosophical," Tracy notes after Cadena leaves. Then she sighs, and tries not to think about anything beyond dinner for now. Well, maybe dessert. She really could use a tub of ice-cream about now..
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-09-11_jason-qcore-lab.htmlThe door chime sounds. "Cadena, Unit AVA-808-X-024, requesting permission to enter," the door speaker reports.
"Granted," Jason mutters around the stem of one of the probe's he's holding between his teeth while he fiddles with some connections out the outer housing. He's down to just a tee-shirt, jeans, and a loosely hanging tool belt around his waist with a mishmash of bits sticking out of it in no discernible logical order. RIU has discovered the wonders and joy of an old plasma-ball light and is just curled on top of it and snoozing contently.
The quantum probe makes noises at regular intervals. "Ping... Ping... Ping..."
The door opens to allow a white dog-humanoid to enter. He wears a white lab coat with an Avatars hanging ID tag, and still has his staff sling over his back. Mane-like extensions to his fur have been drawn back into a ponytail that appears to be secured in place with one of Tracy's hair-bands, though a few stubborn strands fall free in front of his ears. Unlike his appearance in the Gloaming or the Diadem, he does not exude a glow, he is not accompanied by ghostly chain images drifting in the air, and the blue "chain tattoos" are no longer visible through his facial fur - only hinted at with some light blue smudges, as the fur refuses to fall just PERFECTLY into place anymore. He bows as he enters. "Good evening, Mr. Edwards," he says. "I was told I might find you here." He looks around the lab again, evidently a bit daunted by all the equipment.
"Really? I should make a point to rig the building sensors to conveniently forget where I am. It makes me itch when people can find me so easily," Jason claims after taking a moment to extract the probe he was holding between his teeth, "And no need with all that mister stuff. I figure if you've had to dodge bullets together, you may as well be on a first name basis." He glances up and over at the odd dog-human and also can't help but remark, "Er, have you let Tracy do a makeover on you? If so ... she used a bit too much blue blush on your cheeks..."
The dog humanoid reaches up, touching his cheek. "Oh. That. Ah ... my in-game model has a visible pattern in my fur, but that sort of thing doesn't translate so well in the Real World, since my fur tends to shift around, breaking up the pattern. It'd probably have to be cut short for the pattern to show through properly."
Cadena rolls a hand-truck in with him, propping it up on its end to stand near the wall. Unlike the traditional hand-truck, it has rounded corners and soft surfaces, all white and blue, supporting a box marked "Property of Avatars New Product Development Department. PROTOTYPE." He walks over to take an appraising look at the Q-Core box. "I will endeavor to refer to you by whatever name you prefer," he says. "I appreciate the work you're doing on trying to recover the North Bend simulation data. I'm afraid that I hadn't quite grasped earlier just what had happened to it, nor the gravity of the task you're taking on here."
"Er, now I'm imagining your head covered in a great puff of shaving cream," Jason remarks. There's a pause as he checks a few readouts on a console, then there is a few aborted attempts to kick the Q-Core for not cooperating. "Stupid stubborn piece of ... " Jason growls and throws up his arms in a vent of frustration. "Yes, well, the life of a child depends on the data. That makes it even more important," he says once he's calmed down a bit. "Life is too short as it is. It's not fair that someone doesn't even get the chance to really live before it is taken away."
"Ping... PING! Ping..." Apparently the Q-Probe picked up the kick.
Cadena nods quietly. "I appreciate your effort. I wish I could offer some sort of help." He frowns. "Do you perchance know anything about a duplicate of Ms. Penny Arcadia who materialized in the Real World some time ago, when you and Mrs. Holly Trudeau and Officer Randall Cranston first encountered the simulated North Bend? RIU's records indicated that this younger version of Ms. Arcadia was put into some sort of stasis, but I have no way of knowing whether or not that would have done any good to slow down the degradation process, let alone what would have been done with this 'Penny double.' The idea had occurred that perhaps she could provide an alternative way to find genetic data from that simulation ... though I'm sure someone else would have thought of that already if it was possible."
"Honestly, I have no idea what happened to that poor simulation since then. I just remember her breaking down and being placed into stasis," Jason admits, "I expect it would have either been picked up by Avatar's itself and is some lower chamber, or it went to the government agency that manages all clones and replicants. If it went to the latter, it was probably atomized, sorry. It likely wouldn't have been useful anyway, it was incomplete from what little I heard." He looks at the Q-Core again with the decided impression he would like to kick it again. "As for my efforts, I haven't made any real progress. I was hoping that now knowing there is an organic component to these things that I would be able to pick up traces of old organic memory compounds and chemicals, but ... no."
At this, Cadena nods, but frowns. "If that entity was incomplete ... I wonder what might have prompted Ms. Arcadia to believe that the North Bend simulation would have a complete genetic model within the simulation. I had thought that the younger version of Penny Arcadia contained within the simulation would have been that source ... but if this was incomplete ... that might have been a red herring." He shakes his head. "This is really a stretch, but is it all right if I approach the Q-Core and see if I can sense anything?"
"Be my guest. You could kiss it if you want to, but I don't know if it would help any," Jason says and gestures towards it with his right hand. "As for why ... there is a difference between the simulation and the data behind it. You might have perfect data, but only routines capable of realizing a fraction of it."
Cadena nods, and carefully approaches the Q-Core, withdrawing the staff from the sling over his back. "It's not dangerous or harmful to touch, is it?" He stands at about arm's width from the device, examining it curiously and warily.
"No more harmful than touching a vending machine. Anything dangerous is under shield and it's mostly nonfunctional right now," Jason says. His brow then rolls a bit, followed by his eyes narrowing. "And I wonder, hmmm. How well do you remember this Penny?"
"I know Ms. Penny Arcadia, mother of Margaret Arcadia," Cadena says, gingerly reaching out toward the Q-Core, but hesitant to actually touch it yet - as if trying to brace himself to be ready to leap away, should anything too interesting happen. "She never really confided in me or told much about herself. So far as I know, Margaret was raised alone, and Ms. Arcadia had a very negative opinion of males - humans, at least - in general. She had a reputation as being very tough as a businesswoman, but I never really understood the particulars." At last, he touches it. He closes his eyes, concentrating, then says, "Someone - no, that's not quite right. Something is still there. I feel ... vague hints. I can't formulate it into anything solid. I sense ... a tinge of darkness. I suppose I need to be more specific."
"May the Light guide me," Cadena prays. "Please show me the way to someone who is within this place. I wish to help, but I need to know more. Please show me a sign, a path ... something to show me how to proceed."
"Well, I'm grasping at straws here ... but if you remember her pretty well, that might help. The problem with any failed system is it becomes near impossible to see where data starts and noise ends. But ... not that we know it has an organic core and memory encoding is a fairly well known chemical process perhaps your own memories of this woman would help locate part of the old data stream. It would give a chemical sequence to search for with the probe," Jason suggests uncertainly. "Or I could be completely crazy. That's a high probability, really."
Cadena nods. "Perhaps I need a synecdoche, then. Or ... to repeat an unfortunate allegory, I need a sample of the scent to find a trail. Without some sort of help, I'm unlikely to find anything, especially when I don't even know what I'm searching for." He closes his eyes again, concentrating.
"Actually, we need a neurochemical scanner along with a general electrical map of your brain," Jason notes. "Then we just hook up your brain and look for any common patterns in it and ol' Betsy here."
"Margaret, are you there?" Cadena whispers. "I'm trying to find ... another version of your mother from long ago, before you were born. A memory of her. I know that was before your time, but maybe you can help me. If you could try to remember your mother. Did you ever see pictures of her from before the time you were born? Maybe she showed you pictures of the places she frequented, videos of the times she had. Anything that could help to imagine just what she was like when she was a younger lady...."
The lab feels unusually chilly, suddenly. The lights dim, and even the Q-Probe's pinging sounds like it's coming from farther away.
"Er ... that shouldn't be happening," Jason remarks, "And crap, I don't have my gun."
Cadena keeps his eyes closed, concentrating, one hand on the Q-Core, the other holding his staff.
"Mama always said I looked just like her when she was young," an eldritch girl's voice says from nowhere. Sparks of light dance around Cadena's staff.
"Oookay, that's a bit creepy," Jason admits as he fumbles for a weapon. Of course what he comes up with is an old screwdriver ... but it is better than nothing.
The sparks twirl in the air, forming the outline of a ghostly girl. She reaches up to touch the Q-Probe, which begins pinging wildly. "Oh, a toy! What does it do?"
"Margaret!" Cadena says, half-laughing, though tears form at his eyes. "It's so good to hear you again, but that's not a toy. Do you remember your play-place? The one where we built things together? Well, you did all the real work, but still ... I'm near a place that is sort of like that. That is supposed to help us find our way there, but it's kind of fragile. This place we're looking for is made to look like North Bend when your mother was littler, when she was still working for her father at a mall, when he got her started in a little arcade. An arcade ... is a place where games used to be in their own machines, all lined up in a room. It was noisy, with lots of flashing lights - all of the games trying hard to get peoples' attention, so they'd pay money to play."
"Don't touch that! It's delicate. It measures changes in matter at the quantum level!" Jason blurts as he hurries over to the machine. Apparently risk to equipment over-rides being creeped out.
"Oh, and this is Mr. Edwards, but he prefers to be called Jason," Cadena says. "He's a very smart man, who knows a lot about computers. He has a musician friend who is a fox. Er, a fox-girl, that is. He's trying to help us."
The ghostly girl giggles at Jason's expression, but is polite enough to stop poking at it. The Q-probe settles back into its regular pinging. "Hi, Jason! I'm Margie!"
She turns and looks at Cadena as he describes the place. "I can almost see it, this place. It sounds like my last name!" she whispers. "But someone told the machine to forget it existed."
"Uh. Hi?" Jason says uncertainly. "Nice to meet you? That's RIU over there. He's lazy," he adds for lack of anything else useful to say and thumbs towards the sleeping dragon.
"Exactly!" Cadena says. "You can see it better than I can. I'm trying to get the Light to help me find it, but I'm very weak right now. I'm hoping that if you can concentrate on it, and I can get the Light to show the way, then it can help Mr. Edwards somehow, and his equipment might respond, so he can find what he's looking for. It would be just like when Lady Manjari and Daphne and Brother Cadena and the others joined hands at the Oracle, so that together they could open the way to find the Hidden Tome of the Rainbow Bridge, with their combined forces."
Sparks follow the girl like fireflies as she starts climbing onto the table just adjacent to the Q-Core. This last gets her attention however. She beelines toward RIU to tease the dragon by its whiskers!
RIU blerts! and looks up, then whips its head around trying to find its nearly-invisible assailant!
"In hindsight ... remember to not mention RIU to children," Jason mutters.
Margie plays with RIU, causing tiny blue sparks to crackle between its claws and her fingers! "Concentrate on what, Caddie?"
The miniature dragon gives Jason a 'help?' look.
Jason manages a shrug along with a terribly confused look. Unsure of what else to do, he goes and tries to collect RIU to keep him from being a further distraction.
Cadena says, "Hmm. Maybe RIU could help us out. I think dragons are good luck. At least, this one sure seems to be." He ponders. "If you can see this place, or a ghost of it, we're trying to find your mother. Your mother when she was younger. If Mr. Edwards - er, sorry, Jason has any suggestions on something or someone else we should be looking for, I'm open to suggestions."
"Ah, no, it's best to focus on something that would be very familiar. Better chance of locating the data fragments that way," Jason claims.
The miniature dragon curls up on Jason's shoulders! Not long after, however, Jason has to deal with Margie trying to climb up him as well. Her hands and feet feel like nothing more than touches of a chill breeze; if he weren't hearing her voice or seeing the sparks form her body, he could imagine it was just the lab air conditioning acting up.
"Dragon!" exclaims Margie as she climbs up. "Isn't my mom where you left her, Caddie? Back in... Way up in the tower!"
"Ack, hey, I'm not a jungle-gym," Jason complains as he hops around in circles and flailing rather ineffectually.
"That's your mother today, Margaret," Cadena explains, eyes still closed. "Your mother needs us to find a memory of her from when she was younger. It's ... it's like Peter Pan trying to find his shadow that got loose, in a way. I'd try to do this myself, but I'm weak. In fact, I can feel my energy draining away even as we speak. I may not be able to do this for much longer, so I need you to try very hard to focus. I may not get another chance."
Jason stops flailing, leaving him balanced precariously on one foot. "And if you do this, it might make it possible for you to have adventures again with your favorite dog, er, person, er person-dog? Well, whatever he is. It might make it possible to be with him again," he suggests.
"I can think of nothing I'd enjoy more," Cadena says, smiling faintly and sadly.
The ghostly Margaret pouts, but leaves Jason alone. RIU peers out distrustingly from where it's partly tucked into Jason's T-shirt. "Okay, you just need me to find... My mom, when she was real young, so she'd look a lot like me? But someone told this machine pretty hard that it should forget all about that stuff," she explains. "I don't think they wanted anyone to be able to go back to this place."
"They were bad people that wanted that," Jason claims as he tries to recover some dignity from his brief stint on nerds-ballet. "And very bad people should never get what they want."
"Your mother believes that this memory of her when she was young can help you get better," Cadena says. "It's a place of memories, and there were sad memories from this time, but good times as well. Some people would rather just forget the past, and hide away everything - the bad with the good - but we need those memories. We need the younger memory of your mother to help find a way to help you. Then ... you can be with your mother again."
The ghostly girl approaches the Q-Core. "There's a big wall around the arcade," she says slowly. "It's got skulls an' crossbones an' lots of red flashing lights."
"Be careful, Margaret," Cadena says, trying hard to hide the alarm in his voice. "You don't need to actually touch anything. That's what I need to do. If there's anything dangerous, I can deal with it."
The dog-humanoid clutches the staff more firmly. "Light, please show a way past the ... wall of skulls and crossbones and red flashing lights that obscures the arcade that Margaret sees, so that we can find the younger version of her mother."
"Chemical over-write. Of course!" Jason says and snaps his fingers. "Brains are annoying things, they record everything in chemical bonds. Even data being passed between the cores. It also takes a long time to actually get a brain to over-write bonds once they formed. So ... someone has put a programmatic wall up around the organic part while the programming tries to get the synapses to change the bonds. If we can just get that program to shut down, there might be data still in the brain. Eureka!" He hops on one foot in a circle as he's apparently looking for something ... and seems to find it. A grab and slide later, he's hooking another console into the quantum probe. "Time to find any background 'routines' running that center around coordination of the cores..."
The console lights up, begins running the filters that Jason indicates. In moments, the virtual reality view springs up, isolating the lockdown routine from all the normal maintenance routines of the Q-Core. It resembles a giant red-and-black dragon somehow dripping with corrupting ichor, wrapped around what looks like a schematic view of a brain. Margie inspects this display with interest. "That's it!" she whispers.
As Cadena speaks, more sparks of light glitter around his staff... And then drift toward Jason. They coalesce about the display and highlight its likely vulnerabilities.
"That does not look healthy at all," Jason admits as he eyes the dragon. "If I end up on the floor and drooling, just have one of the bots shoot me in the head. It would be kinder," he mutters as he looks over all the possible attack points. "C'mon Smaug, lets find those missing scales so the black arrow can find its mark, eh?"
RIU hisses at the larger dragon! It slinks down his arms and attaches its claws into the receptacles on the side of the terminal... And a tiny virtual RIU appears in the monitor!
The miniature dragon launches a crackling ball of destruction toward the larger one, scoring a direct hit. It reels back, and there is a silent scream.
The door opens, and Tracy walks in, saying, "I brought some ice-cream, hope you like chocolate-chip.." Then she stops, and looks at the ghostly girl projection and the Battle Dragons game going on.
Margie, distracted, skips over to Tracy. "Chocolate-chip ice cream!" she says, holding her hands out.
The red-and-black dragon slashes with its claws! One of the four shields revolving around the tiny RIU-icon shatters and dissolves. A monitor at the bottom of the screen reports, "Network protection layer 4 breached."
Cadena continues to pray fervently for the Light to guide and protect Jason and RIU, as he holds onto the Q-Core shield and staff.
The teenager's lips form a thin, tight line as her eyes widen. She offers the pint of ice-cream (with 1% real milk) to the apparition.
Glittering sparks continue to dance about the monitor, revolving around one highlight, then jumping to the other as the enemy dragon strives to guard its weak points from the enemy.
The ghost-girl's hands close on... Nothing. Apparently the ice cream isn't tangible to her. She pouts.
"It's not the size of your dragon, but how you use it. I always practice safe computing with my du ... eh, never mind, children are present," Jason mutters. It's now his turn to bite his lip and tap away at the panel. "Lets see if I can get it to a predictive pattern of access point movement ... then I just have to be one step ahead."
Just then, Jason sees it, the pattern repeats. Wing, wing, behind the left arm... He relays this to RIU, who leaps upon the forming opening with tenacity! The virtual RIU icon winds up in a corkscrew, gathering up a tiny glowing ball of deadly attack-subroutines, and then unleashes it, straightening out, so that the lightning bolt hits straight on!
"I'm Tracy Trudeau," Tracy introduces herself to the ghost, and sets the ice cream down on a worktable. "You must be.. Margaret, right?"
The lockdown routine shivers and then fades away in a cloud of greasy black bits. Lights start appearing on the Q-Probe as its pinging changes into a soft, subtle music.
The ghost girl nods at Tracy. "But my friends call me Margie! When they don't call me Lady Manjari, of course. But I don't like them to use Manji."
"Coordination unit lockdown disabled. Time to record whatever is left in the ol' brainpan," Jason says. "Maggie, you're up. You need to see if you can find the memory."
RIU looks smug as it unplugs from the terminal. That nasty program will never torment its master again!
"Thank you ... Jason!" Cadena says, gasping. "And RIU!"
"Don't thank me yet. We don't have anything extracted," Jason points out.
Margie looks over at Jason when he speaks her name. "Ok! Maybe they'll have ice cream in there," she whispers. Her eyes are far away as she walks toward the Q-Core. "I see... It's like North Bend! But it's kind of shimmery, and not all there. And there are these weird fin-like things on the skyscrapers. Where do I look for the arcade?"
Tracy quietly opens the lid of her strawberry ice-cream as she watches.
The ghost-girl actually seems to be flying now, her feet no longer touching the ground, her arms stretched out like wings. Stray sparks whip across the floor, portraying the barest outlines of buildings.
To Tracy the lab seems unusually cold and the lighting dimmer than it should be. This takes away somewhat from the ice cream's tastiness.
Jason rubs his face. "Great, ask me for an address I haven't used in four years," he complains as he wracks his brain and tries to remember where the arcade was. "It's not in the main city, outskirts ... " he mutters as he tries to direct the girl as best he can remember. "We had to drive from there ... oh right, the station I blew up. Landmark, right. Follow the old road."
"Okay! I'm following the road now," Margie confirms as she appears to swoop low over the landscape.
"The data is very spotty," Jason remarks to the room as a whole. "It was before reaching the dregs, a worn but still used place."
Cadena, eyes still closed, whispers, "You can do it, Margie. Your mother will be so proud!"
The hues of the tiny sparks shifts to red and blue, and the suggestion of an outdoor mall takes form. "There's the arcade! Hey, it has my name on it. Arcadia!" says Margie. She shifts her position, her feet angling toward the ground as if coming in for a landing.
"Starting up recording of accessed data patterns now," Jason explains to the room as he taps away on the console. Why? Who knows. "Go through the doors. Her data simulation should be inside."
"Does this mean we don't have to infiltrate Dantech?" Tracy asks.
"I wish I could see it with you, Margie," Cadena says, laughing quietly, straining to hold onto the staff and the Q-Core. "Maybe we can build a model of it together some time."
Margie is walking now. The sparks shimmer, then form the outline of a door, which she passes through, and tens of machines inside the door all glowing and chiming. "Um, hi? Mom? Are you here?" she says hesitantly.
"Remember, Margie," Cadena says, "this is from long ago. She's not your mom yet here. Her name is Penny. It's all right to call her that in this place. She won't mind."
RIU curls on one of Jason's shoulders as he types, swishing its tail side to side.
"I'm not counting on that just yet, Tracy," Jason mutters. "C'mon, are you still there or not?"
Margie pauses as if listening. "No, I'm not lost, I'm looking for my-- I'm looking for Penny!" she says brightly. A constellation of lights appears in front of her, a few bright golden lights at the top, tiny speckles of pink, a blue streak forming the body.
"C'mon, let the data still be complete," Jason mutters as he taps furiously. "Too many people die too young. Just once time, be fair. Give her a chance. Let the data be complete..."
The ghostly girl turns to Cadena. "What did you want me to ask her?" she whispers.
"That's a good question," Tracy mutters. "How do you get the data? Can't just ask her for a blood sample.."
Cadena frowns, concentrating. "You found her, then? Does she look like you ... maybe a little bit older?"
"She looks like me! If I were wearing a T-shirt and I had my hair dyed pink and... I'm sorry, I was talking to my pet dog," Margie says.
"Keep talking to her Margie, about anything. Tell her about your dog, or what kind of ice cream you like. anything at all. Just ... keep her going. It's opening up old synapses and old data encoded there. The longer you talk, the more I can get," Jason tries to encourage the odd 'girl. "This place is the keyframe, the data anchor for the entire simulation. It's a monument to his origins and where all his dreams began. He made every detail as precise as he could."
Margie tilts her head. "Someone offered me chocolate chip ice cream, but then I couldn't touch it," she tells Penny Arcadia gravely. "I don't know why! I can touch you just fine. Do you have any ice cream?"
The constellation shimmers in place, as if laughing. It leads Margie outside the arcade, and toward a neighboring store. Perhaps it's a slow day in the Arcadia.
Cadena says, "Yes, I think Jason has it figured out. You're doing great, Margie!"
More soberly, aside to Jason, Cadena says, "I might be able to use my power, using my connection with Margaret as a conduit of sorts, to that other reality. I could try to heal the incomplete model, to fill in the gaps. However, it comes with risks. If I don't do it correctly, my 'healing' could end up creating false data - it would be data that is internally consistent, but not the original. And ... due to the nature of it, I'm not sure how I could tell if I was doing it incorrectly, since the whole point of this is to find data we don't already have to check against."
Margie yums, enjoying imaginary ice cream. "You're a very nice lady, M-- Penny," she exclaims. "Do you have a pet dog? Mine is white and he has blue markings on his face, and..." She rattles on.
Jason's eyes go wide. "It's not just Penny's data in here," he says to Cadena. "Her father and mother are also in here. Their entire sequences. If you wanted to determine what were the damaged sequences in a chain, having multiple sets of DNA from the same line would help avoid re sequence errors. A good system could actually predict what Margie's DNA should be. Just ... don't mess with it. Right now it's one in a million this amount is recovered; any other pushing and we could lose it."
A download bar pops up. It inches slowly from left to right.
Cadena slumps a bit, but then straightens up. "All right. I'll try to hang in here. I'm not sure what will happen when I run out."
"Does it matter if this works?" Jason asks Cadena.
Margie clucks her tongue at Penny. "No dog? But you saw a squirrel? Was it a trained kind of squirrel? Or maybe a squirrel-bot! Avatars makes really life-like ones," she says, then looks puzzled at the response. "No, no, Avatars is this really big company! They have this game where you can do almost anything you can imagine..."
"How far are we?" Cadena asks. "Do you have an estimate for how much longer I must hold on? I might ... be able to predict whether I have enough energy to hold out for that."
A few red lights appear on the Q-Core's dynamic map as Margie continues trying to explain Avatars, and indeed, the whole concept of virtual reality to the Penny Arcadia NPC. "Caddie, come here so I can use your collar and show m-- Penny my Ivory Tower!" she asserts.
The download bar continues to hum along, at about 50%. Another minute or so ought to do it.
"A minute, maybe two," Jason explains. "You have to hold out. You have to find the will to."
Cadena laughs weakly. "I would, Margie, if I could. I don't think I could do that without some sort of miracle. I'm guessing popping a neural helmet on my head so I could join in would be less than constructive right about now."
"Try to talk about something else, Margie. That system doesn't know about Avatar's ... the data is all before the company even existed," Jason urges. "Ask her about the arcade, or about her dad and mom."
Margie pouts at Cadena. "Well, you have virtual reality machines in your arcade, it's kind of like that," she improvises. "Except bigger, a lot bigger. Anyway, you said your dad was out on business? Wasn't Grampa a big builder? He liked to build big buildings!"
"Is there any way you could insert me into the simulation, Jason?" Cadena asks. "Not physically, of course. Just ... maybe if there's some device I could speak through. Maybe Margie has a toy ... it's like a ... what were those called again? It was like having a virtual pet, but you took it with you in the real world, and you could take it by friends who had the toy and your pets could 'play' together. Maybe if my voice and image could be relayed through that, it wouldn't break the setting."
The red lights shift. They don't seem to be increasing greatly, but just a few every second.
"Margie ... can you find out how old Penny is?" Cadena asks. "Find out how much older she is than you are, if you could. Does she have any favorite music? Maybe there's something new that just came out."
"I could but ..." Jason says, "This is delicate enough as it is. Just a little more time is all we need. Are you really sure? I could try to patch that collar into something in the simulation."
"If it looks like it'll break something, don't bother," Cadena says. "I was just thinking that maybe more points of interaction would mean more engagement. More connections."
The ghostly girl dutifully does as Cadena asks. Sparks of light continue to flow from his staff into her and the simulation of the arcade to which they've returned. "Cat on a Spaceship? My mom listens to that all the time," she exclaims. "Oh wait, you're-- never mind!" The red lights gradually subside as the VR topic no longer seems to be of great importance.
The data download bar increases again, now at the 75% mark.
"My drain rate has increased," Cadena says. "I might be able to make it, but we have to keep trying more avenues. Margie ... does Penny have a favorite game at the arcade? Maybe she could give you some tips on how to play it."
Jason rubs his forehead. "Nothing is as ever quick as we would wish it to be," he admits. "Nearly there, though. Just a bit longer..."
Margie duly picks up a few tips on how to beat 'Dragonriders of the West', which she deems to be a fun game, if kind of old-fashioned. The download bar closes ever nearer to 100%... And finally hits the mark. It flashes green, enclosing the word 'COMPLETE'.
"Got it!" Jason declares as he continues to tap away. "Now making ten redundant copies on different systems just to be sure."
"Do you need a V-chip?" Tracy asks, reaching for her chip wallet.
"Thank you, Margie!" Cadena exclaims. "Now ... er ... can you let Penny know that you need to go now? We've got to get you back out of there. If everything goes all right, you should be able to visit again later."
"I'll take anything just to be sure the data isn't lost again," Jason claims. "You don't need any of your memories, right? We might be able to overwrite your brain with the data..."
"Caddie says I have to go now," Margie says to the unseen arcade attendant. "I'll be fine! He'll walk me home." She smiles and waves at the Q-Core.
Tracy retrieves a blank petabyte chip and brings it over to Jason.
And a few seconds later, Margie is somehow more there, looking at the real world, holding a hand out to her faithful dog. "I met my mom when she was real young! She was still like, old, old, but not OLD old," she clarifies. "And she treated me to a soyberry cone. It didn't taste much like real strawberry! But I didn't want to be mean and tell her that."
"Cloning data yet again," Jason remarks after taking the chip and copying it down to that device too.
Cadena finally looks up, opening his eyes, and he laughs when he sees Margie with his own eyes - for the first time in a long time, aside from just somewhere in his own memories. "That was very nice of you," he says. "We'll have to tell your mother all about it. Now ... we'll have to get ready for the next step...." He sets down his staff, and gets down to one knee, extending his arms out to Margie.
Margie smiles, then runs up and hugs Cadena. It feels like a whisper of wind. "Thank you, I had a great time," she says softly into his ear. And then she is gone.
The lights brighten up again. It feels a bit warmer.
Even though she's gone, Cadena stays there, kneeling, his arms closed as if trying to hug the space where Margie seemed to be just a moment ago.
Jason unhooks the console from the quantum probe and slumps against the workbench behind him. "Stupid lights, messing with my eyes," he mutters as he wipes at them. "Looks like we got the data Penny wanted. Perhaps more. Maybe for once the innocent won't have to suffer."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-09-13_breakfast-at-avatars.html Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-09-13_dinner-at-avatars.htmlDespite it being dinnertime, the cafeteria is far from pushing capacity. The Diadem holographic display is surprisingly light on current events precisely because, right now, there aren't any, and most on-site Avatars employees are busily working away in offices and taking their meal by delivery if they're even bothering to eat at all in the middle of the emergency.
The few robots wandering around the cafeteria don't reflect this level of tension, however. Unlike the "cute, minimalist" look of the security robots and the sleek look of the tour bots, the serving robots touring the conference center area and cafeteria are designed with "making an impression on guests" in mind, and hence are styled to resemble various of the more popular Avatar designs, while several representative Augment props are hanging on walls or column supports throughout the area.
On an upper tier, in a privacy booth overlooking the main floor, a white-furred dog-humanoid sits strumming a stylized guitar (though the sound is muted by the privacy screen), watching the minimal activity and doing a poor job of NOT looking as if he's keeping a watch out for someone or something to drop by the cafeteria.
"I wonder if they've restocked the ice cream yet," Tracy mumbles, as she shows Jason the way in.
"If you keep eating when you're feeling down, you're going to inflate like a balloon, you know," Jason points out as he meanders into the cafeteria, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He's still without his jacket, but at least he didn't wear the tool belt.
"I burn a lot of calories when I run," Tracy notes. Without her hairband, her hair is half-hiding her face when she slouches. "There's Cadena. I recognize that ax-guitar."
Cadena pokes his nose out of the booth and over the upper-tier railing. His ears perk when he sees Jason, then flick as he looks a bit inwardly emotionally contested (or perhaps just embarrassed at being spotted so quickly). For a moment, he looks between the buffet area, his hand-truck of items he's hauling around (it smells of freshly-washed laundry), and then decides to take his chances as he abandons it for a bit and leans over the railing. "Mr. Edwards!" he stage-whispers down from the upper tier. "I've saved a spot for you!" As if there weren't more than enough open spaces already.
Jason glances towards the dog-and-his-guitar. "I'm not sure I really want to know why ... " he starts to say to Tracy, " ... and it seems no rest for the weary. I guess I should see what he needs in a few minutes." He holds up his right hand while he heads towards the buffet and replies, "Let me grab something and I'll be up."
Cadena waves to Tracy, then looks a bit apologetic when he notices the state of her hair. He sheepishly retreats to the cover of the booth while they get their food.
Tracy follows along, looking over the buffet even though she ate earlier. Maybe there'll be some mood-enhancer jell-O this time around.
Jason is one of simple tastes usually (probably because simple takes less energy), but in this case it's harder to find a meal that doesn't look ridiculously expensive. He ends up settling on a simple sandwich, a small side-salad, and some sort of fizzy grape drink. "I feel like the gorilla at the ball," he remarks to Tracy before he heads over and up the stairs to join Cadena.
"I don't get it," Tracy admits. "What's a gorilla?"
"A giant, dumb, untamed, uncouth, animal," Jason answers Tracy. It's a quick jaunt up the stairs to join Cadena in overlooking the cafeteria. "People-watching?" he asks as he claims one of the numerous open seats.
A robotic lemur scampers along the railing, small enough that it's clearly there just to be cute and trendy (lemur-variant companions enjoyed a spike in popularity last year) rather than actually doing much to keep up on maintenance or serving the guests. It flicks its segmented, striped tail, showing only momentary interest in the diners making their way up the stairs, then scampers along to go pester a yawning office-worker across the way.
"Yes, I suppose," Cadena admits. "I finished with my laundry after our talk about ... er ... the Arcadia family." Despite the effectiveness of the privacy screens, he still seems a bit reticient. His ears flick, and he plays a few chords on the strange guitar, ears swiveling. For some reason, he looks satisfied, then continues. "Ah ... there was something else I had intended to speak with you about, when I visited you in the lab, but your work on the Q-Core was of course more immediately pressing."
Tracy slides into the booth last, with a simple yogurt drink.
"There is always an emergency of some sort going on," Jason points out just before picking up his sandwich and starts munching. "So, it's best to just ask at the time instead of waiting. Anyway, what did you want to ask? I don't bite," he adds once he finishes swallowing. "Well, except my sandwich. I'll bite that."
Cadena's borrowed hand-truck is parked in a spot that would normally accommodate a wheelchair-bound eater at the table. On top of the prototype case that he had on the cart earlier, there's a duffel bag (Avatars-branded, naturally) that is stuffed with Cadena's cloak and robes, freshly laundered, and with signs of some simple stitching. The prototype guitar he holds looks like a toy from Avatars, though its axe-like edges look real (albeit covered with some sort of flexible plastic liner). Cadena considers the guitar again, then sets it aside. "It's regarding Inari. I know I've only known all of you for ... days? Has it even been that? I have a knack for sticking my nose into places where it doesn't belong, but I had a few concerns about Inari, and after further consultation with the SPARK and ... er ... my brief discussion with Ms. Knightley ... well, I guess my concerns aren't exactly allayed. Basically, I'm not certain that Inari is really who she - or Akiko - thinks she is."
"I don't see how they could be anyone else.." Tracy notes.
"You sure know how to pick an uncomfortable subject," Jason remarks before taking a swig from his drink. "Who or what do you think she is? Or isn't? I have no idea what you asked this SPARK, or Sasha, about Inari."
Cadena frowns, fidgeting. "That isn't precisely what I meant. I'll try to elaborate. Inari is a unique individual, of course. I've no doubt about that. But I don't believe that, in any meaningful sense, she is really Akiko's Avatar companion. Their relationship with each other, if it's hinging upon that, is hinging upon illusions. I know a bit about Avatar companions, since it's a topic near and dear to me. I know enough to realize that I am not one. Not merely that I'm an artificial being, but ... you can't just take an Avatar, give it speech, and end up with someone like Inari, or like me. Avatars don't think or work that way. I tried to explain it to Tracy, but I'm having trouble explaining the nuances. A lot of this, I simply know, and a lot of my communication with the SPARK is more empathic rather than verbal."
"Avatars aren't intelligent you mean," Tracy says. "They're like smart animals?"
"Not even that," Cadena says. "I don't think that RIU or ... ah ... that wyvern of Officer Cranston's that I only barely got to meet ... are very representative of true Avatars. Real Avatars don't have fully independent processes. They are intricately tied with the workings of the WHITE, because they are essentially guides to the player experience in the Avatars universe. Augments don't even pretend to be sapient, but play a similar role in pushing players along in their online experience. They seem alive and real in some respect, but they aren't really independent, and their interactions are in many ways just an empathic mirror of the player."
"You're right in that she isn't like an Avatar. I should know since I have one sleeping back in the lap. If you're asking me to explain what she is, it would be difficult for me to do so without basically guessing. If I had to quantify her, she is the result of taking aspects of an Avatar and fusing them with a real person. Powers of an Avatar with the mind of a human. When I decoupled them it seemed wrong to just force he back into being a dumb animal, so to speak. so, I left aspects of Akiko that made Inari, well, Inari," Jason says and shrugs a bit. "I made sure Akiko was clean, but I didn't do as much with Inari because, well ... it seemed like a lobotomy to do so."
"The system can tell.. how a person's mind is organized?" Tracy asks, looking surprised. "I mean, to isolate two different personalities in one person? Or is it only because Inari started out separate?"
"And RIU is a fusion of a concept of an avatar with an old recon robot I had called the Recon and Infiltration Unit," Jason adds.
"I'm not sure that it can do that," Cadena says. "Blake Forrester engaged in an elaborate sequence of 'reboots' of his environment in a mind-boggling attempt to brainwash them. That doesn't seem to imply that he had command of forces that could simply reprogram their minds at will."
"So.. he drove Akiko to split her personality into herself and Inari?" Tracy asks.
"Yes, it could, Cadena. A brain is just a collection of synapses and neurochemical bonds. You could use electricity to alter bonds and adapt sections. Or vaporize bridges or any other myriad of techniques to alter the way someone thinks," Jason notes. "Moreso with anyone who had a builtin interface. You should read up on old medical practices like electroshock they used to use on the mentally ill to alter them."
Cadena shakes his head. "Okay, once upon a time, I would have said that the idea of somehow 'merging souls' into a single mind should be impossible, and yet somehow I'm 'carrying' the 'Observer Soul' of Margaret. Somehow. But ... still, even if Blake somehow had the power to change Inari into a sapient being, THEN merge her soul with Akiko's in a way such that it could be separated again, for some reason he didn't seem to use such sweeping methods when reprogramming the others."
The just-mentioned mini-dragon licks Jason's ear as it gets named. "Breeep!" It resumes gnawing on a holodisplay just behind the power cord. The display flickers, becoming very faint.
"Well, Blake sort of hated Akiko for rejecting his advances," Jason points out. "People do crazy things when out for revenge ... like Tracy's boyfriend blowing up my home."
Cadena shrugs. "Without something approaching hard proof of anything, I have only anecdotal 'evidence' and speculation, but all I'm saying is that if someone were to 'change' Inari the ordinary Avatar into the Inari we know today ... there's no point in it. The process would be to essentially create something that wasn't there before, then slap on some superficial features associated with the old creature and claim it's the same entity. Inari seems to have been far more advanced than any of the other AIs in the North Bend simulation."
"Mark wasn't out for revenge.. and he's my ex-boyfriend," Tracy points out.
"She was Blake's prototype," Jason notes, "And first experiment subject. And he's made sure that he'll win in the end anyway." He resumes chewing on his sandwich a bit rougher than it probably deserves.
"How's that?" Cadena asks. "What, is he still alive? Is he behind all of this craziness with the North Bend simulation? Is he working with Dantech?"
"No, he isn't. As to how, it's not my place to say. If Inari wants you to know, she'll tell you. It's not my place to talk about her private matters," Jason answers.
"Wasn't he killed in the Fracture?" Tracy asks around her drinking straw. "We met the Fry's in the Diadem. If they survived.."
Cadena sighs, hiding his eyes under his hand. "I am, I suppose, talking about her private matters. You're right. I'm just being overly nosy. I read a lot into things, and I've been projecting too much without having any facts to underlie my assumptions."
"You're trying to find answers about what you are by looking at someone who is similar to you," Jason observes and waves his sandwich. "No one can really fault you for that. Needless to say, Blake is gone. There are just some things I apparently didn't fix quite right, is all. I'm real good at botching things when it matters." He stuffs the remainder of his sandwich in his mouth and chews.
"Umm.." Tracy starts, then says, "If there's something wrong with Inari.. would Akiko have the same issue? And.. would Margaret, if she's 'repaired' using the same method?"
"Unlikely, and unlikely," Jason answers.
"I suppose I just find it terrifying to think that it's quite so easy to blend and split minds," Cadena says, shaking his head. "With the concept of the Observer Soul of Margaret ... honestly, I haven't come to grips with what exactly that means. She has only 'awakened' in the presence of her physical body, and near that Q-Core. I don't know if I'm really carrying a second mind around in my own, or whether I'm just serving as an access point for some sort of projection from her own, living mind. Reality seems so ... fragile. Our surroundings, our bodies can be changed by forces that seem to be mostly limited by how the programmers chose to limit them. If only the programmers decided to grant the AIs freer rein, perhaps the whole world would be a realm of chaos - but if at least we could be certain of our own minds, there could be a refuge."
"If what you're saying is true," Cadena says, "and someone as lowly as Blake really could merge souls and split them apart as he so pleased...." He just shakes his head, letting that thought trail off.
"It's all speculation. And really, does it matter at this point? It has happened, it has been done, it will probably be done again," Jason remarks rather grimly. "What exactly can we do about it? Ever hear the old story about Pandora's box? Once you unleash an evil, it never goes back."
Cadena nods. "You're absolutely right. If this is the way the universe works, then I should adapt, not brood over what I can't change. Brother Cadena would be more ... serene about something like this."
"It doesn't have to be evil though," Tracy says quietly. "It could be used to cure people. Although, I guess it could be used to alter their brains too."
"I think I just somehow got the idea that Inari was ... I'm not sure how to put it ... 'missing' something, 'acting out," Cadena says, shaking his head, "and Akiko acting like she was missing part of herself, like she'd lost something because she thought Inari was her Avatar companion, or something crazy like that. I suppose I was just being melodramatic, trying to project my own imaginary narrative onto actions, since I didn't know people well enough to really understand them. I'm trying very hard to get out of that habit."
"You see, that's the problem, Tracy. Many things don't have to be used for evil .. but quite often in the end, they are," Jason notes. "The nature of humanity is greed and self-interest. We can see ashining example of that in Ms. Arcadia herself. Willing to employ any means necessary to save her daughter. While savign a child is an honorable path, doing it by killing others is not."
"Your speculation isn't that far off, Cadena," Jason notes. "I've talked to both Akiko and Inari about it. I could elaborate more on those conversations ... but it's something Inari should tell you if she wants you to know."
"My mom would probably do the same," Tracy mumbles, slouching again.
"Everyone has something they would sell all their morals for," Jason comments, then downs more of his drink.
Cadena frowns, but then offers, "I suppose what I was hoping to offer, is that if Akiko feels that she's missing a part of herself, that her companion is gone ... it's not on account of Inari finding a life for herself. Inari is not her Avatar. Whether you think Blake upgraded her, or whether Inari was created by using Akiko's brain for a neural template, Inari is not an Avatar. Inari's actual Avatar was a collection of data, and anything that gave it 'life' was really an empathic reflection of Akiko herself."
"But, saying it like that," Cadena concedes, "I doubt it would be comforting in the least bit. I don't know if it would help or hurt if I had the power to conjure 'Inari Mk. I' with the power of the WHITE, and reintroduce her to Akiko."
"I sorta got the impression that any 'missing' part of Akiko or Inari's lives was named Jason Edwards," Tracy says, with no snark at all. "They both missed him more than they missed each other I suspect."
"That ... sounds far simpler an explanation than anything I came up with," Cadena says, ears flushing.
"Otherwise, I know the feeling of.. missing something," Tracy says. "It's not a spiritual or physical thing, just.. emotional bonds can be strong. It takes time to recover."
"Who, me? They just don't know me well enough yet to be completely offput," Jason remarks rather dryly. "When you first came to my home, I know you were looking for some hero. Instead you found ..." He motions at himself. "This."
"You must have done something to make a favorable impression on them," Cadena says. "Based on RIU's synopsis of events, it wasn't as if you and Akiko ... er ... Inari ... they ... were on strictly friendly terms. It looked like there were certain obstacles to overcome."
"You're still the only man I actually feel confident or really comfortable around, so that counts for something," Tracy notes. "You weren't as disappointing as Sasha; not by a long shot."
"Because I'm not a threat, I make no pretenses, and I'm honest with you. You don't have to worry I'm somehow trying to use you," Jason points out to Tracy.
"And I don't need to impress you, I guess," Tracy says. "So yeah, that can make you attractive to an insecure person."
"You also risked being brain-fried by a Red Level-6 security system," Cadena notes, "to help a girl you don't even know. You could have restricted yourself to more 'reasonable' risks, and it's not as if this is part of a reputation you are required to uphold, or programming to carry out."
Jason swirls his cup. "Margaret hasn't even lived yet. She's still a child, full of all the hopes and dreams all kids have before the real world decides to tear them away," he remarks. "We need people like her, you know. And no, not because they need the chance to let the world ruin them. Maybe they'll be the one that fixes the world. Besides, it was just the right thing to do."
"I appreciate that you care about it being the right thing to do," Cadena says, smiling as much as his mouth will allow.
"Still.. you do care about the people you help, right?" Tracy asks. "Not just because it's the right thing to do?"
Jason swirls his cup again. "It's what makes me terrified about failing them," he admits and downs whatever is left in his cup. "I've lost most people in my life."
"Did you do like me, and imagine a special reason for all the bad stuff?" Tracy asks. "A villain, a source, someone out to cause all of it?"
A familiar golden vixen can be seen entering the cafeteria, wearing wide sunshades though it's night. The employees near her draw back in surprise as they notice the assault rifle slung over her back. Pinned to her black jumpsuit's lapel is a red-bordered visitor's badge with her photograph, but the space where her name should be, is conspicuously blank. She looks about at the lower level, then goes to the robot-served food area and procures the day's special, ginger-spiced pork roast served on a bed of rice noodles. She skips the side of mint-flavored carrots.
Cadena absently strums a few notes on the borrowed guitar, with the amp turned off, looking down at the frets. "You shouldn't be hard on yourself for that, Tracy. It was not unreasonable to assume that there was more to Sasha's actions, given just how often she showed up to wreak havoc on your life. There have just been so many amazing coincidences lately, I've been drawing more than my share of connections myself. It still find it hard to imagine that it's all just chance. I can only have faith that, whatever might be responsible for orchestrating these travails, it will eventually be turned toward good."
"That's why I want to meet Penny Arcadia face-to-face," Tracy says, and spots Inari. She nudges Jason, since she's on the outside of the booth and he may not have seen her. "I'm tired of being just collateral damage."
"No, but then I got to see early on that it was just typical self-centerdness and money that made them just not care. Or a crutch to get out of problems they cause," Jason answers. "My life changed because a drunk kid decided to joyride in his parents car and hit my parents head-on. And true to human form, his wealthy parents made sure he faced no consequences for double-manslaughter. Money buys everything, including police to lose evidence. What I learned was that life isn't fair and never will be. Mister drunk is now a high-powered exec of some company. Granted his last couple marriages didn't last because his wife got anonymous packages depicting her husband involved in certain acts with escorts, but I'm not vengeful."
"Speaking of collateral damage," Cadena says, and here he reaches up to remove the hair-band from his own hair/mane, "I think you really need this back." He then gets up and returns Tracy's hair-band to its proper place, combing her hair back in place (though a few strands of white have ended up tangled in the hair-band in the process). "I'm sure I can find one of my own. I don't think this is my color, anyway."
"That was weird," Tracy admits. "Nobody's ever brushed my hair since I was a kid." With a glance at Jason, she clarifies that with, "A little kid."
One employee looks at the golden vixen, then whispers excitedly to her co-workers. All three are dressed in standard white jumpsuits with the Avatars logo. Perhaps they're fans. Inari tilts her ear toward them as she wheels her tray through checkout. Her badge seems to suffice; the register shows 'COMP'.
Jason leans over and spots Inari. "Here's your chance to ask Inari about herself if you're feeling brave enough," he notes to Cadena. Of course how he decides to try and get her attention is by folding his paper napkin into an airplane and fling it at her.
"Oh ... er ... Ms. Arcadia likes to brush Margaret's hair," Cadena notes. "She doesn't entrust it to a servant robot. I figure it's important." He looks a bit awkward, and strolls over to the railing to show a sudden interest in the holographic display of the Diadem. He then blanches as the paper napkin airplane goes sailing past.
"She's really close to her daughter then," Tracy notes with a grin. "Thanks, Cadena.. now get ready to duck in case Inari shoots at us.."
The paper napkin may be shaped like an airplane, but alas, it just lacks the material cohesion to stay together in that shape, much less fly straight! Inari does notice the airplane as it wobbles by, however. She glances up, then takes the stairs to the second level.
"Airmail, your fans must be missing you," Jason quips.
Cadena doesn't hear Tracy, as he stumbles out of the privacy field and bumps against the railing to avoid the paper airplane. He instinctively moves to protect the guitar still hanging from his shoulders by the strap, lest the prototype get bashed against the railing or the support column.
Once on the upper level, it doesn't take long before Inari spots them! She brings her tray over -- besides the meat and noodles, there's a dessert cup of frozen soygurt, coffee-flavored. "Everything all right?" she asks. "Something new hasn't exploded?"
"Cadena isn't cooking here," Jason notes in memory of the disaster that befell his kitchen. "So all the food is still intact."
"Jason was able to hack a dead Q-Core using a ghost," Tracy notes. "I had ice cream. Cadena can play the guitar a bit. So.. nothing explodey.."
"Oh, right, we recovered the genetic data from the core," Jason agrees and shrugs as if it were nothing.
Cadena, still by the rail, just watches in bewilderment as Inari steps inside the area of the privacy screen and engages in conversations he can't hear (no matter he swivels his ears) so long as he's still outside. He chews on his lip, then blows dangling hair/fur out of his eyes. Minus the hair-band, and since it hasn't fully dried out after a much-needed wash, it hangs heavier than before.
"Really!" The golden fox glances over at Cadena, then back to Jason and Tracy. "I've just been in debriefing with Holly. It sounds like she's being swarmed with lawyers right now. Her husband got called in, and they're dealing with someone from everyone-- Dantech, angry players, employee union grievances... And it sounds like Voya is trying desperately to find me too, but the company's on comm blackout for now. All communications out to be authorized."
Tracy scoots in closer to Jason, to try and make room for Cadena to return.
"Do you want Voya to find you? I could probably relay something through my link to Kimon," Jason suggests to Inari. "Or even just send them a message?"
The dog-humanoid casts about for a bit, then resolves the seating issue by walking over and finding a regular chair at one of the open tables. He then trots back with guitar and chair, sets down the chair, giving an embarrassed smile to everyone, and rolls his overloaded hand-truck out of the handicapped space, parking it just outside the privacy screen. He then replaces it with the chair and sits down - problem solved! "Ah ... hello. Don't mind me."
Inari looks at Jason as if he had gone insane. "This is my first real vacation since... Since forever!" Not vacation in the classic sense, but a vacation from being in front of the public's eyes.
"Sasha didn't mention Irongrip Security when you were questioning her did she?" Tracy asks. "I still don't know how they're involved."
"Can we have a mean without discussing yet more gloom?" Jason asks, "We'll get enough of that in the meeting tomorrow."
Inari smiles over at the white dog. She begins nomming her pork with alacrity.
"No message it is, then," Jason notes. His poor untouched salad ... well, he uses the lettuce to build a small fort on his plate.
"For my part, I didn't hear anything about Irongrip Security," Cadena notes. "Sasha didn't hint at needing any further help for her schemes, as she had ample financial backing, and willing troublemakers."
"Irongrip Security?" asks Inari. "Holly mentioned they might have to hire on additional security since a fair chunk of their security has to be relieved of duty and background-checked, and their name did come up. He did use to be their head of security, after all."
"So.. no idea why he's stockpiling stolen weapons or why he shot down Randall and Mara yet," Tracy says with a sigh. "I figured my mom would go to Eagle - she told me General Irongrip was not trustworthy anymore, I think."
The co-worker and her two friends creep up hesitantly to the balcony. With the privacy booth's field only muting their conversation, they catch sight of the golden vixen's distinctive ears, despite her sunshades.
"General Irongrip shot down Officer Cranston and Mara?!" Cadena asks, incredulous. "We know this for certain? We must warn your mother immediately!"
"I'm pretty sure she already knows," Jason notes, "And yes we know it for certain."
"I'd like to be absolutely sure," Cadena says. "I'm already responsible for too many security breaches today." He conjures up his VR collar holographic interface, and starts punching at the imaginary buttons with his fists ... then shakes his head and takes advantage of having proper fingers. "I'll make it quick."
"You know, you really should be a smaller sort of dog," Tracy tells Cadena. "More terrier than wolfier.."
A robotic "phoenix" Avatar glides by, its fiber-light tail shifting in an array of fiery hues ... as it carries a coffee pitcher directly to the table of an office-worker who, by the looks of things, has been pulling an all-nighter-and-all-dayer by this point.
The vixen looks curious. "I don't recall Irongrip Security being directly linked in that?" she asks. "What if they didn't know who they were supposed to pick up?"
A holographic image of a cartoony Chinese woman appears on Cadena's holographic interface, dressed in an old-fashioned business dress. "I'm sorry, Ms. Trudeau is in a meeting at the moment, may I take a message?"
"Well, it would mean they're engaging in 'no questions asked' sort of deals then," Tracy points out. "We haven't tried talking to them yet, and I don't know how much Randall learned from them while he was a hostage."
"Yes, please," Cadena says. "Unit AVA-808-X-024 reporting. High priority: VP Trudeau, I heard you are considering using services of Irongrip Security to supplement overtaxed Avatars LLC security. PLEASE DO NOT. Irongrip Security possibly involved in downing of Mara and Officer Cranston. Interface note: Request receipt notification. End message."
"The job came from IronGrip, I have a record of the mails exchanged," Jason notes, "So I don't trust them at all. At least they've known better than to try and mess with me."
The Avatars-logo jumpsuited woman approaches as her friends giggle nervously. She waves hesitantly at the golden vixen in the booth, but her words are muted by the privacy field.
Inari nods thoughtfully. "Well, hopefully Cadena's warning will get through," she says. Her attention is caught by the woman waving at her. She looks up, then sideways to the others.
Tracy slouches a bit further as more people seem to be noticing them.
"I think you have some fans, Inari," Jason comments and waves towards those that seem to be looking this way. "Do you want to say hello to them?"
Cadena sniffs at the air habitually. "Traffic seems to be picking up. Could that mean that they're actually making progress on restoring the system?" He looks up toward the Diadem holo-display, as if expecting to see more scroll updates popping up. "But then, if they actually accomplished anything, I'd expect some noise. Loud cheers, at the very least."
Inari takes Jason's apparent nonchalance as a guide. "Hello there," she says, leaning out of the privacy field. "How may I help you?"
"Are you... I know it's a strange question to ask, but are you really Inari?" the woman asks. "I'm a big fan!"
The golden vixen look aside at Jason nervously.
Cadena awkwardly gets out of the way, since his chair was occupying most of the entrance into the semi-circular enclosure. He stands up and steps out of the field, blinking.
"Would knowing that answer really make a difference?" Jason asks the woman. "Or would you prefer to always wonder if just maybe you got to meet the real Inari?"
Cadena closes his eyes, then flips on the amp on the axe-guitar. He plays a quick sequence on the guitar, accompanied by the artificial on-board backdrop ... but as he does so, he begins to glow, and his hair begins to rise and flow as if blown by an unseen wind. Ghostly chains materialize and drift upward and out, dancing to the music. He sparkles.
The other women gasp as they notice this transformation. "Oh! Oh my god! You must be experimental Avatars!" they realize.
Inari smiles. "However did you guess?" she murmurs. "We're a company secret, so don't tell about us." She holds a black furred finger to her lips and winks.
Cadena stops playing, and then tosses his hair as he smiles to one of the ladies, and then leans forward to take her hand and bow over it. "Real-Avatars Companion Prototype Program, Unit AVA-808-X-024, at your service. It is a privilege to be in the presence of those who make it possible for Avatars LLC to work magic in the real world. Thank you for your work."
The women seem satisfied with getting to meet experimental Avatars prototypes and promise not to tell anything, before leaving them to their meal.
"I think I'm going to go get a shower and some sleep. I feel rather tired; it's been a long day," Jason notes as he pushes himself out of the seat. "And oh, Inari ... Cadena had some things he wanted to ask you. Personal things. I told him he had to ask you directly."
"Like nobody's seen two giant talking animals having dinner before," Tracy mutters.
The golden vixen raises an eyebrow. "And here I was going to suggest we should go out... Hit a nightclub, do some dancing," she says to Jason, raising an eyebrow.
"Sorry, I can only survive one near-death experience a day," Jason quips.
Cadena lets out a long breath, and retreats back to the relative safety of the privacy field. "Sorry about the display there. I thought perhaps that going over the top would make it clear that there wasn't anything secretive going on here to worry about."
"Oh, you'd be perfectly safe in my paws," the vixen murmurs.
"Can I at least get a nap first?" Jason asks.
Inari laughs. "All right, I'll come find you later." She turns to Cadena, "I thought it looked pretty good, myself. You could have a future in show business." She winks.
"You'll thank me later, I'm on the verge of being rather ripe. Shower and nap it is. I'll see you later," Jason says. He waves, then grans his trash and heads down the stairs.
Cadena bows to Jason as he goes, and finally reclaims his seat. "Ah ... well, I had to channel a different role for that one. I probably couldn't manage that on a regular basis. Too ... unreliable."
"Maybe the ripeness is what turns Inari on," Tracy notes, then ducks out of smacking range.
Inari swats at Tracy obligingly, smiling, then leans over to whisper into her ear.
Tracy nearly snorts but keeps it in. At least she's smiling again.
The golden vixen continues to munch on her ginger-roasted pork, mostly passing up the rice noodles, with an occasional lick of her coffee-flavored frozen soygurt. She doesn't seem to have any problems with the concept of eating her dessert at the same time as her dinner.
Cadena takes a moment to gather his wits, looking more sober. "Ah ... I'm sorry to bother you about this, Inari, but I was wondering about a few things." He removes the guitar strap from around his neck and sets the guitar down in the newly-unoccupied seat. "I've been told that you are, among other things, a shapeshifter?"
The golden vixen shakes her head. "I used to be able to change to a large four-legged fox," she says. "But ever since I got, well, 'realized', it seems like illusions are the limits of what I can do. Does this have something to do with the fact you're still running around on two legs?"
"Ah, yes it does," Cadena says. "When I changed form, it was only in the virtual realms ... er ... when we were going through those alternate realities in the Q-Cores. However, I've been getting feelings from the SPARK that somehow I'm capable of changing back to my 'normal' form - even here, in the Real World. That ... rather disturbs me, actually. HECATE indicated that my healing power is of no use to help real people in the Real World, because I can only generate virtual matter with it; if I tried to heal Margaret with it, for instance, it would only be temporary, and in order to live she'd have to go through a portal to the Diadem or some other virtual realm. But if I have the power to physically change here in the Real World ... that seems to call into question just how real I am, after all."
Inari looks thoughtful. "So you're wondering if you're like some kind of holographic projection, only with solidity? And maybe you're being remote controlled by a Q-Core somewhere?"
"That sums up my fears exactly," Cadena says. "It also implies that I'm probably fairly easily reprogrammable in a way that a truly living being would not be. But then ... I guess it would explain how I could be carrying Margaret's 'Observer Soul' with me, in sense." Frowning, he leans over to his duffel bag and pulls out his first aid kit. He extracts some snips, and then reaches up, snipping off a few stray white hairs. He twirls them, and stuffs them into another sample tube, then hands the tube over to Tracy. "Could you perchance hold onto these? I'd like to find out if they're still in the tube in the morning, since I definitely won't be sleeping at the foot of your bed overnight, so I should be far enough away for the degradation effect to kick in, if I'm really made of unstable matter. If it's unstable, it should break up harmlessly in the tube. If it's still there ... well, it doesn't definitively prove anything for sure, but it's worth testing."
"I'll have to check and find out if Avatars LLC has any of my blood samples on hand," Cadena notes. "If they did at some point, but they mysteriously vanished, that would be a bad sign for certain."
Tracy tucks the tube into one of her pockets. "If you were a projection, your hair wouldn't be so messy," she points out.
"My biological factors and flaws aren't necessarily proof of anything," Cadena notes. "It could just be a sign of a very detailed simulation, for all I know. My technical expertise in these matters appears to be quite lacking."
The vixen licks her bowl of soygurt clean. "If you were made of some kind of nanotechnology, when you transformed, you should let out a lot of heat, too," she says, between licking her muzzle clean. "And you should stay about the same mass. Maybe that's why I can't shift to a fox, there'd be a big weight difference."
Cadena nods soberly. "I wish I'd taken the time to learn more about others in the Real Avatars program ... such as it is. I don't know if they might be the same as me, or if we're clustered together just because of outward similarities. I got the impression that there were distinct differences between myself and the rest of the subjects, though I never quite grasped exactly what they were. I was too busy ... playing my role, I suppose." He looks to Inari. "For one thing, my memory is a bit patchy. Do you by any chance remember what it was like to be an Avatar, a companion to Ms. Akiko Summers, before you were able to talk - before you became fully sapient?"
"What if you went back to the Fracture point, Inari?" Tracy asks, a bit shyly. "Would you be able to change there without a problem?"
"Yes... I think I do," the golden vixen says, leaning forward toward Cadena. Her tail swishes slowly in the booth seat behind her. "It's a state of being. You are, your master is, the world around you is. You can feel, you can sense what your master is feeling, you can react to threats... It's peaceful. You don't worry, because you trust your master will know what to do. And when your master needs you, you will be there for him. You are Linked."
Cadena frowns, sitting back in the chair. "But of course, you don't have any of Akiko's memories, before she was Linked with you, do you?"
To Tracy, Inari shakes her head. "I think when Jason made sure that I wouldn't dissolve in the real world, he anchored me to this form. Good thing for him I like it." She winks. "There isn't really much call for a big brute of a fox, in my line of work."
The golden vixen looks troubled. "I... I want to say, no, but I have dreams sometimes," she says softly to Cadena.
"I don't know if they're figments of my imagination, my subconscious wondering what would have happened if I'd stayed the flip side of Akiko's coin, or if somehow I do have her memories too. And I don't know if she has my memories," Inari admits to Cadena. "We sort of fell out of contact, I was busy with my new career, and I guess she didn't want to interfere with that."
Cadena twitches. "I ... okay, I wasn't expecting that at this point. That means...." His face contorts, and he puts his hands up to his temples. "Well, everyone else has heard my wild speculation. Nothing backs me up, though. I was expecting to have it clearly smacked down right here, so I could close that avenue of thought."
Inari looks askance to Tracy, then back to Cadena. "Spit it out, puppy," she says.
Tracy just tries to look small in Inari's presence.
"Just keep in mind that I have an unstable personality profile," Cadena says, "and I have spent much of the past four days navel-gazing as my view of reality keeps getting torn up and spit out. And Bl-- Never mind that. Different topic." He closes his eyes, ears swiveling, and then he opens them again. "I held some crazy ideas. Still do, though I'm trying to narrow them down. One of those crazy ideas was that I was created indirectly by Jason Edwards, as a result of his effort to separate you from Ms. Akiko Summers - an echo of the process he used on you."
"A good portion of this was based on the gross assumption that minds can't be separated," Cadena says, "that Blake did not have the power to simply reprogram human minds any way he wanted, to merge them together, and for them to be split apart again, just so long as the right person bypassed all the security protocols and told the system to make it so."
The golden vixen sits back. "Well, maybe you're spending too much time theorizing... Not enough time just listening to yourself," she says. "I can tell the difference every time when I'm trying too hard to make good music. It sounds forced."
"You mean too much rationalizing?" Tracy asks.
"Listening to myself is a difficult concept for me to make meaningful," Cadena says. "It's very noisy up here." He taps his forehead. "Very crowded. Good grief, but I'm glad nobody can read minds, or this would be even more embarrassing. But to my point, my crazy idea was that ..." He seems to consider something, then stops and starts again. "If you're missing the days of being an Avatar, of having the simple life of just doing as you were told, fighting as you were supposed to, having no real decisions to make, no real life of your own to live, IF that's the case, it's my belief that that life was an illusion."
"So the virtual reality experiences aren't real?" Tracy asks, brow furrowed.
"One night, an emperor dreamed that he was a carefree butterfly," Inari returns. "When he woke up, he wondered... How could he tell if he was an emperor who had just woken up from a dream, or a butterfly dreaming that he was an emperor?"
"If he was a butterfly dreaming he was an emperor," Cadena says, "then I have grossly underestimated butterflies. I'm trying to say, based on what little I can offer in the way of my 'expertise' on the workings of Avatars, as I've tried to understand them, that you aren't Ms. Summers's pet. YOU never were, and there's no going back to that experience. What you've got is data from another entity. If anything, you are a lot closer to being Ms. Summers's ... sister."
Inari smiles. "I think I like the way that sounds. Akiko, sister." She giggles a bit. "But which of us has to call the other one onee-san?"
"The one with the most swords gets to be the older sister?" Tracy suggests.
Cadena opens his mouth as if to give a quick answer to that, then clamps it shut again, looking less certain. "I don't think I can definitively answer that one. Now I wish I could ask of Akiko whether she has 'dreams' of being 'you,' and then I could be a little more confident in the matter."
"That would be me," Inari says confidently. She leans toward Cadena long enough to tap his nose with a clawtip. "But my point is... Even if it was an illusion, it's still part of my experience, my memories, part of what makes me who I am and what I am. I chose to remember having been her Avatar, even if I was really a reflection of her remembering her Avatar, when she had to change forms, back when. I define myself."
"I won't argue with that," Cadena says. "It's your dream. Nobody else can claim it over you. The best anyone could do ... would be to share it."
"I just have dreams of burning alive and being chased," Tracy mentions. "I'll trade you!"
The golden vixen smiles, but continues to hold Cadena's eyes as she lowers her clawtip and lays her hand over his. "Who do you want to be?"
"Whatever I am, I'd at least like to be able to state it with some certainty." The dog-humanoid then looks a bit uncomfortable. "In any case, my theory for a while had been that I was created due to that process that Mr. Edwards rigged up still being in-system, since he didn't exactly have time to clean up the mess before transitioning to a higher-resolution realm - or whatever the proper technobabble is for that. With all the restriction protocols stripped out, even an AD could have co-opted the process in an attempt to make Real World stable entities. All you'd need is one Avatar model, one human neural template, and a complete lack of moral concern over the trial and error you'd need to make before you spit out something that would be stable enough to live and by psychologically stable. Hence, I was going to blame some AD for the mess that happened when several disoriented talking Avatars were left when the Convergence Field receded, and they DIDN'T turn into black goo. I was one of them."
"If that was the case," Cadena said, "then it might mean that part of my neural and genetic template could have been derived from you and Ms. Summers. If THAT proved to be the case, I was trying to sort out whether I'd see you as sisters, or if one of you would be ... my genetic mother." He grins awkwardly. "Hey, family."
"Of course, by that reasoning, that would mean Mr. Edwards would be my father," Cadena suddenly notes, looking upward uncertainly. He shudders slightly. "I suppose he'll get a good quip out of that one."
Inari laughs, patting Cadena's hand, then letting go. "He probably would!"
"Maybe you were born from the GREY," Tracy suggests. "Wasn't it the one responsible for.. well, making people act like people? Err, then again, that would just add another element of complication wouldn't it?"
"I wouldn't mind having a younger brother," the golden vixen says teasing Cadena. "I'd draw the line at having a son though. I don't feel old enough!"
Cadena smirks, wincing. "No, no, I didn't mean it like that!" He puts his hands up in "defense." He then clears his throat, looking to Tracy. "Well, as I've noted together, for all I know I was cobbled together from multiple neural templates. I could be a regular mental Frankenstein's monster. But I've got some very strongly ingrained rules in my head, at least. That is, Obey your master, and that only Avatars LLC - i.e., your mother - gets to tell me who my master is. And then under that I've got a whole mess of vaguely prioritized code-of-honor priorities. Even Black Cadena has to obey them."
Inari shakes her head. "It doesn't sound much like a typical Avatar's program," she says. "Or if it is, then it's a broken one. You wouldn't even think of them as rules, just the way things are."
Tracy nudges Cadena and whispers, "Ask her about useful stuff you need to know now that you're stuck with hands and legs and such."
"I used to think of them that way," Cadena says. "It didn't really change until Margaret's ... well, I thought she was dead. So 'Margaret's death' was the turning point. It was against my sense of self-identity and the way I thought the world should work. I expected a miracle. I couldn't accept when it apparently didn't happen. I feel ... I feel almost sick to find out that there was a miracle after all, and I just didn't know about it, and I fell to pieces, rather than having strong enough faith to see it through. I began to think in directions I hadn't before. I ... Oh. You're right."
The vixen raises an eyebrow.
Cadena clears his throat. "Sorry. I really don't need to dump all that on you. I've been ... I've had a captive audience for the first time in a long time, that's all," he says. "I've been really exploiting it these past few days."
Inari reaches out and holds Cadena's hand. "It's all right. You're a friend now," she says.
"But he needs to sleep in his own bed now, and other confusing things," Tracy notes. "I'm amazed he figured out how to do laundry.."
Inari looks askance at Tracy. "Are you doubting his ability to sleep in his own bed? Seriously?" One ear tilts.
"Well.. he always slept at the foot.." Tracy says, a bit lamely.
Cadena gasps-laughs awkwardly. "Th-thank you," he stammers. "You're far too kind. Good grief, but everything Mr. Edwards has done for me, Tracy, Vice President Trudeau ... I don't know how I can possibly repay all of you. And here another item on my to-do list was ... ah ... well, you see, most of my time ... right. When I've been humanoid, it's just been in virtual reality, where everything is just sort of glossed over, my furhairwhatever stays perfectly in place, I never have to change clothes and they just somehow freshen up by themselves. Fortunately, I learned at least a little about housekeeping at the Arcadia residence, simply because Ms. Arcadia thought it was good for Margaret to 'help' with chores, rather than the robots doing everything...."
"Everyone seems to have useful robots," Tracy mutters. "We had a squirrel"
The dog-humanoid tugs at the lapel of his "loaner" lab coat. "If you've got any tips on where to shop for clothes to accommodate unique forms such as yours ... mine ... it'd be a help. I had so many questions for Tracy and ... well ... it's not like she got much experience with that in the Gloaming, after all."
Inari grins at Tracy. "Your puppy's quite intelligent, you know. I'm sure he can figure out something like how to sleep while in humanoid form." She looks back toward Cadena. "I know a few tailors who do excellent costume-work. Let me give you their numbers, and they can make you an outfit to order. You can have a fabric replicator produce it here."
"I mean, you could ask an AI to make you something, but what do they know about fashion?" she points out.
Cadena's ears perk up. "Really? That would be great! Tracy, maybe you could help me pick a look? I've never actually picked clothes for myself before. I mean, not virtually, either. It's always been Margaret or one of her friends. And I have bad memories of the random set generator."
"It's just disturbing that a four-year old can function better than most people my age when it comes to housekeeping and such," Tracy says. "Do you like bright primary colors?" she asks.
"On white fur?" Inari considers Cadena and his bluish markings. "If you wanted to look darkin', you could go for black and silver."
Cadena looks horrified. "BC would like that too much," he says. "I'd best not go for black ... I mean, I was staying stable more or less even when playing the guitar, but I don't want to risk another switch."
"Well, then you have something of an idea of who you want to be," Inari points out. "You don't want to be Black Cadena. And clothes do help make the man."
"Blues then? I.." Tracy says, then pauses and looks to Inari. "You wear tight-fitting stuff, but is that comfortable? Could Cadena get by wearing.. uh.. Samurai pants?"
"Oh, that could be trendsetting, if he wears them right," Inari says.
"No, that's exactly the problem," Cadena says to Inari. "I keep talking about it as if it's real, even though I know it's not, but a part of me wants to be Black Cadena, like back in the hover car. I've got this delusion that somehow if I acted like Black Cadena, somehow everything would fall into place, and I'd be powerful and no-nonsense like I imagine Black Cadena would be. It's a lie, and I know it, but when I'm under stress, it's still a tempting one, and I've spent too much of my life playing 'pretend' in virtual reality." He clears his throat. "Blue is fine. Loose is probably a good idea, since, well, I've got fur and all, and don't have stylists at my beck and call."
"How many ways are there to wear pants?" Tracy asks. "But.. it'd be sort of like the Brother Cadena robes. And with cranes and fish and dragons on them.."
"That sounds like me and Sasha," Tracy says. "For awhile.. I thought the only way to beat her was to become her. Like.. things wouldn't happen to me anymore if I acted like her and just.." The girl sighs. "Anyway, I went the exact opposite."
Inari suggests, "If you start with a flexiweave, fur doesn't get trapped in the micropores like they would with ordinary fabric. It expands and contracts with my motions, for that skintight look. So you don't need to focus on loose-fitting clothes if you don't want to."
Cadena hmms. "Maybe a suit would be good, with a vest, and a long coat. Like ... late 19th century or early 20th century? Oh, wait, I don't have a human crown, so I'd have a bother keeping a hat on my head, and you just can't do late 19th to early 20th century without a hat...."
To Tracy, Cadena says, "You didn't see the Sasha I saw. She's not quite as strong as you might imagine. She's probably trying to act like someone else that she thinks is strong. I think I saw through her shell. Vulnerability doesn't excuse all that she's done ... but...." He shakes his head. "I'm sure that if Black Cadena got his run through the Real World, he'd be just as under-whelming when put to the test."
Cadena sighs and calls up his VR collar interface. "In any case ... I ought to start taking notes."
Inari looks dubious of Cadena's claim. "She could have been just playing you," she says.
Cadena just arches his eyebrows. "As far as I know, I'm only four years old, so, right, I can't ever rule that sort of thing out."
"Hey, I just realized," Tracy says. "Technically, I'm the oldest one here! So you may call me onee-sama!" She grins widely.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-09-18-revenge-of-the-lawyers.htmlWednesday, December 4, 2069 - 7:00 AM Eastern
It's been a busy few days since the morning that Tracy was awoken by terrorists from the Gloaming. Since then, they've dealt with various attempts on Tracy's life courtesy of Sasha and HECATE believing she was somehow instrumental to persuading her mother to release data. Jason was able to recover said data from Blake Forrester's Q-Core with Cadena's help and a ghost, believe it or not. Inari has arrived and kindled a new relationship with Jason while Akiko and Randall have flown cross-country to assist Mara in recovering from a missile attack launched by Mav's Mavericks, street gangers who may have been working with Irongrip Security.
Yesterday was especially busy-- on a trip to get a checkup for Cadena, they tripped across the BLACK's plan to subvert Avatars LLC with infiltrators from the virtual Empire of Stars, forcing it to attempt its Convergence early. They trekked through several different virtual realms and incidentally witnessed the awakening of ATLAS, an AD with extraordinary abilities to control portals and find locations, stopped the BLACK from its last-ditch effort to take over the network, and found out that HECATE was behind the attacks on Tracy, in the name of recovering the data to revive Margaret, Penny Arcadia's daughter.
With all that behind them, you'd think that our heroes would have earned a break! But no, Holly's voice wakens Tracy, Jason and Inari in their guest suites, and alerts Cadena where he is investigating the Q-Link room.
"Rise and shine, heroes," the fourty-ish Chinese woman says.
Once she's satisfied she has all their attention, she continues, "Dantech is launching a Non-Disclosure Attack on us. They're going to enter the premises and arrest anyone they suspect of being privy to information relevant to their 'proprietary' Q-Cores technology. Which is all of you. Those they catch will get a free brain scrubbing 'til they're satisfied that you don't retain any illegal memory of their 'trade secrets'. They won't care if they scrub out a little extra."
Holly says, "My husband has been fending them off as long as he can, but they're about to go the 'brainwash now, get government signoff later' route, so all of you need to evacuate immediately. Follow the security bot, he'll take you to the sewer access. Nose filters and two canid gas masks are in its storage bin."
"My bet is, they really just want to get all of you in their clutches, so you can't interfere in whatever it is they've got planned next. Give 'em one in the eye for me," Holly says.
'I'm sure the government would love to know Dantech is also violating the act regarding replicants by keeping the clone of me," Jason remarks rather dryly. "Anyway, where are we to go? Back to by bombed out home?"
Cadena replies on his link, where he's currently moving along with a security robot as directed. "Who is in danger of being mind-scrubbed? How about the intruder I arrived with earlier?"
Holly cautions, "They're sure to have at least one or two agents stationed anywhere that they think you're likely to go... HEL says they've got a satellite locked on North Bend so they're watching the entire area. So if you go above ground, you should limit your exposure."
"Well, we can't go back to my place," Tracy remarks, making sure she's got her taser and other important things (namely, her chip wallet). "We could could go to.. er.. Penny Arcadia? She might be able to protect us?"
"Sasha wasn't exposed to our 'violation of NDA' incident in the Q-Core lab, so she should be safe," Holly says.
"Since when do they have the right to kidnap people at whim?" Jason asks. "This is growing into the realm of absolute stupidity."
"Since we found out they've got cloned human brain tissue in their Q-Cores?" Tracy suggests.
"That still doesn't give them legal right to kidnap people. They aren't the police," Jason points out.
Holly sighs. "That, it turns out, is the real reason for their highly draconian NDAs and their insistance that their Q-Cores can only be serviced by their technicians. If the public knew about it, they'd be the target of massive backlash. But we can't expose it, without their Q-Cores, we're basically up the creek without a paddle."
Eddie, or a close cousin thereof, beeps as if to encourage them to come along while chatting with Holly through his built-in comm screen.
"Some of those technicians were Empire of Stars people though," Tracy notes, following the robot. "So.. isn't that a violation of Avatars NDA? Appropriation of copyrighted characters or something?"
"Ah and there comes the answer, it's all about money with a corporation," Jason remarks. "Frankly, I'm tired of running. Give me a gun and some ammo and I'll kill as many of them as I can. I'll save one bullet for myself. I'll be damned if anyone is messing around in my head again."
Mark Trudeau, Tracy's father, leans in from the side of Holly's camera pickup. "Hey, honey! I've got a legal AI doing the legwork on that, but I don't think it's going to pan out. The lawsuit motions and injunctions are flying pretty fast!" He pretends to duck. "Whoa, that was a close one!"
Cadena lets long pauses go over his communication, as he hastens along to follow the security bot. At last, he says, "Oh yes - by the way, Vice President Trudeau, I'm glad to hear your voice again. Please pass along my well wishes to Vice President Burgundy. I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to see him. And ... might Ms. Arcadia's hover car still be here, or did the auto-chauffeur already return it home? Perhaps we could arrange for a lift, if Dantech doesn't already have a reason to keep a watch out for it."
"I wish we'd brought the sneak-suits now," Tracy mutters.
"Oh, you brought THIS for me?" Cadena says, forgetting to switch off the chat. "Thank you! Yes, this will come in handy. Say, next time Ms. Knightley is out of sedation, can you please let her know I'm still working on finding her lost cat? I'm afraid I've run into a bit of a distraction. I hope she'll understand."
Mark smiles. "I'll do that. He's still recovering in the infirmary. He's been muttering something about not wanting to be part of 'the machine' and calling for Monica." He shakes his head. "That's a legal mess, but we'll have to sort through it after the current NDA-fight. I wouldn't recommend trying to fight them off though-- that'll just add 'resisting arrest' and 'armed assault' to your charges."
"Not if I'm dead. Sorry, tired of running, not going anywhere," Jason says flatly.
Holly smirks at her husband. "I don't think that'll stop Jason. He'll just sign into the legal database and make the charges vanish... Or at least he'll try." She leans forward. "So what's your plan? Resist arrest? Go along with them? Or try to negotiate with them?"
"Jason, you know they won't wipe you - you're too valuable to them, especially if they've got Jason Zero working with them," Tracy notes. "And doubly so if he isn't working for them. What about Inari?"
The golden vixen follows, quiet until now. "I don't particularly like running," she admits. "But I don't think they'll hesitate to scrub my brain and turn me over to Voya to be their pop star icon. The money would be too good."
"How would they even know we were involved?" Tracy asks. "I mean.. I didn't look like myself, Jason was encased in armor.. Do they have spies here or something?"
"Whatever we choose, I cannot and will not condone the idea of Tracy remaining behind with this madness going on," Cadena says, huffing as he runs. "Her safety is my priority, and brain-scrubbing is counter to that. We can't take the risk."
Cadena's ladybug-bot leads him to Eddie's position, where they can regroup.
"You all seem to be missing the part about I'm not going to be taken alive," Jason points out. "At this point my home is gone, my business is gone, and you're basically saying I can't even go above ground. What kind if life is that? And frankly, what real hope do we have at this point? On one side we have a Arcadia willing to kill anyone to save her daughter and on the other end we Dantech using spy satellites and paramilitary forces to silence people. Running even a simple analysis of a survival chance given those parameters and we're all dead anyway. It's just a matter of time; so I'm picking my time."
Holly shakes her head in the holo-projection that Eddie emits from his left ocular. "The writ specifically names Jason Edwards and Tracy Trudeau, plus 'accomplices thereof'. I'm pretty sure that it's not actually about violating the NDA... Though given how gossip travels, I imagine they'd have to scrub a large percentage of the company, which I'm not about to permit. They want you for other reasons."
"I think Ms. Arcadia will shelter us," Tracy says. "I don't care if they'll get us - as long as it isn't now. There's still stuff we can do, and a delay could see the whole thing turn around. And Arcadia is the only one we might possibly turn into an ally: we have what she wants more than anything else!"
RIU beeps! and stands up on Jason's shoulders, clearly proud of its master.
Inari holds Jason's hand. "Jason... Whether you decide to stand and fight here or run, I'll be with you. I don't want to lose you to them."
"Ah, on the topic of the Arcadia family," Cadena asks, "Vice President Trudeau, did my message to Ms. Arcadia regarding our situation ever clear for sending? In the event of my sudden mysterious disappearance, it might be of interest to her."
Behind Holly, a voice chimes. "Additional intruders detected."
Distractedly, the middle-aged Chinese woman nods to Cadena. "I forwarded it, though if you have to ask me, trying to recover Moonlight is a terrible idea. What is it now?" She waves at the empty air, bringing up threat displays.
"I should have rigged a dead man program a long time ago. On the event of my death and and all secrets I have cataloged and collected is blast-released onto the network, all news channels, all blog sites, all 'watchdog' sites, everything," Jason remarks as he walks, eyes narrowed. To Inari he notes, "Your name isn't listed in the 'warrant' or whatever it is they're calling it. You're safe from them. You still have a chance. You shouldn't waste it on someone like me."
The golden vixen shakes her head. She stops Jason briefly, putting both her hands on his shoulders. "Jason, I..." Her eyes gaze into his. "If it were possible for me to be an Avatar and us to be Linked... But I don't want you to abandon RIU. I just want you to know that you mean that much to me. I won't lose you." RIU puffs up, looking jealous, but knowing his master's feelings, the minidragon forbears from driving her off.
Cadena rushes into view, accompanied by a robot. He's still wearing an Avatars LLC lab coat, carrying a heavy bundle in his arms that appears to contain his first aid kit, bundled robes (recently laundered), and armor pieces, while his staff is slung over his back. He looks abashed at stumbling right into Inari's and Jason's private moment, and hastens to shuffle along and give them space.
"Unless the new intruders are Eagle Security come to protect us, we should head for the sewer," Tracy tells Cadena. "Dantech may hesitate to mess with Jason, but they'll wipe me and do who knows what to you."
"You don't play fair," is all Jason seems to manage to say to Inari after her plea to him. He also finds it's rather hard to keep looking her in the eyes after that, so he looks down at his feet. "Look. Running is pointless if we don't have a destination to run to. We need fortified ground. A secure place from everyone involved. I frankly don't trust the Arcadia family at this point, either and running to them now puts them in a position of power over us. That's strategically a very bad mode," he tells everyone. There he rubs his forehead for a bit, looking as if he's developing a headache. "And we have a place to go. God, I'm stupid."
Cadena, seeing that the group has come to a halt, casts about for somewhere.... "Closet!" he exclaims. "If you would please assist me in putting on my armor?" he asks to the security robot, as he dashes into the supply closet. Crashing and shuffling noises ensue. Superman, he is not.
Mark draws in breath. "Looks like Arcadia has joined the legal battle... They're calling for an injunction against Dantech on the grounds that their 'punitive and excessively aggressive protection of proprietary information would lead to the destruction of valuable information which Avatars LLC is obligated to provide to Arcadia Developments'... And they're claiming their lawsuit preempts Dantech's due to having been issued first!" He grins. "Talk about choosing between Scylla and Charybdis. Hang on, I'm getting an incoming call from Ms. Arcadia herself."
The ladybug security robot escorting Cadena cheerfully follows him into the closet. "Oh dear, oh dear," she says. "Would you like help with that?"
"Are you about to suggest we escape to.." Tracy starts to ask, then stops when her parents announce the message from Ms. Arcadia.
Inari kisses Jason's nose. "Fighting fair is for fools," she says. "Spit it out, what've you got?"
"Mav's Mercs bunker in the dregs," Jason says flatly. "It's in a part of town no one wants to go. It's hidden, and it can be fortified."
The golden vixen looks thoughtful. "I don't remember the place. So you want to hole up there until the heat dies down?"
Holly looks over her husband's shoulder, but the call is muted on this end, with sophisticated privacy filters making sure that Ms. Arcadia cannot hear them talking either.
"I want to rebuild a place of defense. It's where Randall was being held. It has power and it's in a nasty part of town. I don't want to dance to their tune, they should be dancing to ours. We hold data both side want to either suppress or want to get. IT's the only cards we have left we can play. So we have to play them to our best advantage. Playing them now when we're weak is not a good move."
Holly nods. "All right. Do you know how to get there? Don't tell me where it is-- we need to not be able to tell them where you guys went!"
The ladybug security robot with Cadena pings. "In answer to your previous question, Ms. Arcadia's car has been moved to long-term storage after half an hour of occupying the helipad, in accordance with standard vehicle parking policies."
"I don't suppose you've got any useful tools in there that would help me make a disguise, do you?" Cadena asks, voice muffled in the closet. "Oh, who am I fooling? Even if I had collie markings, I'm not going to blend into a crowd."
"I know how to get there, yes," Jason says, "And what is Ms. Arcadia calling directly about? Is it just the legal maneuvers?"
Holly summarizes, "She's anxious to recover the data you collected, she apologizes for the actions of her associate, whom it's clear to her is not entirely within her right mind and needs treatment, and makes clear her associate's policies do not represent Arcadia Development, and she would like to extend her protection to you and your companions and invites you to guest with her in the Arcadia Towers. In a word, 'gimme.'"
Tracy looks torn. "We still have to leave by the sewers," she points out. "If we send the aircar out, and let everyone think we're on it.. we can see if Dantech is willing to shoot it down. If they're not, then we know they aren't keen on going up against Arcadia. Meanwhile, we can get to the merc base while they sort things out."
"I'm not willing to accept that invitation until the legal mess is sorted out enough that we aren't going to be grabbed the moment we're spotted," Jason says. "The idea of sending the aircar to see if they shoot it down is also an interesting gambit."
The ladybug security robot advises Cadena, "I am not programmed to improvise disguises, I'm afraid. Would you like me to refer your query to an AD?"
"That's quite all right," Cadena says to the robot. "I don't think we have the time. Thank you. That will have to do for now. Got to get running." He opens the door.
"Let's go then," Tracy says, getting the nose-filters and gas-masks from the robot.
Inari perks her ears. "Did you hear that?"
""Hear what?" Jason asks.
"Heavy machinery ... in an elevator?" Cadena guesses, ears perking. "Or a whole bunch of robots. We'd best pick it up. Which way?"
The golden vixen noses toward the far end of the corridor. "I think Dantech's lawyer bots aren't going to be deterred by Ms. Arcadia's injunctions."
"Then it looks like the sewer it is. We'll get to the bunker and I'll get the Einhorn online. Yes, I kept it," Jason remarks as he grabs some nose plugs. "I thought it might prove useful."
"Mom, we can use a diversion!" Tracy says into the robot. "Can you make it sound like we've accepted Arcadia's offer and are leaving in her aircar, then launch it on autopilot?"
Eddie chimes. "Just a moment, sir!" He extends his micro-manipulator arms and unships part of the floor, revealing a crank, then uses his main arms to open it and reveal the maintenance passageway leading downward.
"Or.. at least that we're entertaining it and want to meet her in person or something like that that isn't legally binding in any way.." the teenager amends.
Holly nods. "On it! Mark, you handle Ms. Arcadia. GANGLOT! Front and center, we've got an escape to stage."
Jason also takes a moment to try and 'ping' Kimon, to see if it is still active or Dantech decided to steal his system too.
"If Irongrip security is out there and shoots it down.. uh, I don't know what that would signify, actually," Tracy says as she waits for the access hatch to open.
Eddie adds, "Just follow this corridor for fifty meters, then turn right, then you'll find a ladder leading downward. For security reasons, I will be shutting down my exterior sensors for five minutes."
"What's the plan, then?" Cadena asides to Tracy. "I'm perfectly willing to go along to Ms. Arcadia's estate to see if I can negotiate to get some assistance, and then meet up with you later, or we can just run for it."
Kimon pings back, along with a status report. It appears Holly was right, there are two hovercars that have been flying a patrol route around his house. The security guards that were watching the house have been rotated several times, and reconstruction is just about done on the front door area.
"Thank you Eddie," Tracy says, as she puts in the nose-plugs and hurries into the access tunnel. "The point of using the aircar on autopilot is to see if Dantech will shoot it down. So being in the aircar is not a good idea. When we're secure, we can see what's up.."
Cadena frowns, ears drooping at the prospect. "I sincerely hope they don't shoot it down. The auto-chauffeur is nice ... and that's Margaret's favorite hover car."
"We're going down into the land that makes you hate having a nose, then moving to an old bunker to set up defenses and once we're secure, we can see what's up, like Tracy says," Jason notes.
The fox-shaped household security adds, "Tesla coils have been recharged and the land-based defense system is ready. Presently Avatars LLC-authorized security are permitted to pass. You have 57 new messages. Eliminating spam. You have one new message, from Thomas Whaley of Irongrip Security."
"Play it," Jason tells Kimon.
The familiar gruff voice of Thomas Whaley plays in Jason's ear. "Um, listen, I'm in a jam here," he says. "I know I told you it would be a while before I had to have that sneaksuit, but now the boss wants a full inventory and all personnel on site and ready to roll out at a moment's notice. Is there's any chance you can have that sneaksuit in before 2 PM? I can stall them until then, but after that, my tail is toast! Get back to me when you can! Please!"
"Looks like the recall on your sneaksuit is in as well. That means Irongrip is likely planning a move too," Jason tells the others. "We had better get going now. Either that or commit ritual suicide."
"Did anyone bring a flashlight?" Tracy asks once they're in the tunnel. Then she remembers that her taser has a small light on it. "Wow, I knew that suit would come in handy!"
Holly says, "Good luck! And remember, we don't know where you went. As far as we know, you're still on the premises." She gives Tracy a meaningful look. "Be careful, sweetheart."
Eddie and his ladybug friend power down... Including the comm system that would relay Holly and Mark's words to them.
Inari drops into the tunnel after Tracy, carrying several headlamps. "These were in the robot storage bin," she says. "I can see in pretty low light conditions, but I don't think you can."
Biting her lower lip, Tracy hurries down the tunnel. "50 meters, then turn.." she mutters, and tries not to look too worried. "You know where the sewers intersect the old subway system, right Jason?"
Cadena sighs and salutes Eddie and the ladybug robot, then rushes into the access tunnel after Tracy and the others. He accesses his VR collar and sets it to passive mode only. Wouldn't do to have it provide a way to track him, or for it to make noisy incoming-message alerts when he's trying to be stealthy.
"Kimon, send a reply that we're a little busy, but will see what can be done. Also, include a question on if he knows exactly what Irongrip is planning to do that he needs it," Jason relays to the computer as he heads down and into the tunnel. He snags one of the headlamps. "No, but I can probably look it up. Let me get Kimon to do a search for them in city hall under the auspices of building repair and knowing where to dig or not dig."
Inari waits for the others to drop down, handing them headlamps as they pass, then reaches up and dogs the hatch shut, turning the underside crank to seal it. "After you," she say to Jason. "I'll watch the rear."
The household AI responds, "Initiating search. Records found in archives. Streaming now."
"You rob me of the chance of a pleasant view in this dingy place," Jason tells Inari just before he sticks his tongue out at her. "And ... I have the maps needed now. So we should be able to find it."
Avatars LLC has its own branch of the sewers, controlled by an electronic gate, with cameras monitoring the area. As they approach the gate however, the door appears to be unlocked and the cameras powered down. As Holly explained, this gives Avatars LLC plausible deniability: they have no idea if Jason, Tracy, Cadena, and Inari have left their premises, officially. Time is ticking.
From here, they can trek up toward the Towers, where similar gates control access to the various corporate boroughs and the Towers themselves, meaning that Jason or Tracy will have to bypass their security and elude their defenses to remain undetected. They can also head outward toward the outskirts of North Bend; there, they should be able to get into the old subway network, and make their way toward where Mav's Mavericks were based.
Tracy hates having to breath through her mouth, but isn't about to remove the nose filters. "How far do we need to go?" she asks Jason.
Inari, wearing a gas mask, flicks her tail at Jason. "I don't hear anything from behind us," she says. "I think we lost the Dantech stormlawyers, for now. Of course if they anticipated us taking to the sewers, they may have a unit or two patrolling down below."
Cement bulkheads separate the sewer tunnel sections. In the event of a pipe rupture, a section could be closed off by sensor-triggered hatches. So far all seems quiet, and their footsteps cause echoes.
"Kimon, entertain me for a moment ... and see if there is any access to the sewer controls that handle Dantech corporate headquarters? I might decide to give them a backup later; valves fail after all. It's only fitting they have to clean up their own waste, after all," Jason relays to his office. "How far? Miles, unfortunately. There are also security points we'll have to over-ride along the way," he notes to Tracy. "I highly recommend we take a long and winding route. Less likelihood of running into any patrols that way ... and Inari's comment about them patrolling down here wouldn't surprise me."
"They'd need permission to use the gates though," Tracy says, sounding hopeful. "Can we see what gates are in use from any one of them? And can we use them to set up a false trail?"
"It's probably possible to trigger a false trail, yes," Jason notes.
"Remote access to all sewers points are controlled by protected computers," Kimon responds in Jason's head. "Operator assistance would be required."
"I guess public works did learn their lesson after the convention center was flooded a few years back during that lingerie expo," Jason mutters.
They make their way slowly through the tunnels, taking the long route. At one point, Cadena slips on an unexpected discarded soda box-- some maintenance person must have carelessly dropped his lunch refuse here-- but Tracy is there to catch him.
"Sorry, Tracy," Cadena whispers. "I was distracted. There are several people up ahead, in heavy armor, crossing our current path. It doesn't sound like they've noticed us, but if we keep going that way, we'll run into them for sure."
"We have two options. We can cut the detour shorter and bypass them, or take a longer route around. I recommend longer; it's less likely to be predicted as conventional strategy would be to take the shortest routes possible," Jason tells the others quietly. "So ... follow."
"I wish we knew which set of armored people it was," Tracy whispers as they detour.
Inari says, "I'll sweep up our trail after us." She eyes the tunnel ahead of them. "Think I should leave them a... surprise?"
"While I would like to, it would unfortunately give them a tip we did go this way," Jason admits. "So ... hold off on that."
The golden vixen smirks, but acknowledges Jason's right.
Cadena nods in agreement with Jason, and tries to take a little more care in where he steps this time.
As they take the longer way around, passing beneath a sign that reads 'WASTE FLUID RECLAMATION PLANT', Jason narrowly avoids a puddle of some odious looking green liquid that has collected from a leak in the smaller pipes. Inari looks behind them and reports, "All clear. I don't think they've picked up our trail."
Trudging through the sewers is really starting to annoy Jason. "Kimon, can you locate Andrei's address? I've half a mind to sign him up for every porn subscription in the world, plus the fruitcake of the month club," Jason thinks.
"They must not be using sniffers," Tracy suggests.
They're about two thirds of the way to the abandoned subway network now, and the floors have changed from warped vinyl to hard-packed dirt. Waste water sloshes in giant steel pipes mounted to the concrete walls by brackets; the toxic chemicals have been removed but what's left is still decidedly unsafe to drink, and is thus being used to irrigate the farmlands around North Bend.
Inari points out, "Sniffers would get a real noseful around here. I'm more worried about them tracking us by dust, but I'm covering our tracks."
Kimon responds, "Andrei Romanov's address is unlisted. Operator assistance will be required to obtain it from Dantech private employee registries."
"Here, Inari," Cadena says quietly, "I can take over for that if you'd like. I think I've got the gist of it, and your skills are likely essential to help us keep watch out for what's up ahead."
"How about his mother's address, then?" Jason thinsk.
"Jason, is Kimon monitoring the news?" Tracy whispers. "If the aircar was attacked, there'd be something about it, right?"
The golden vixen nods. "All right, but we're entering the outskirts now. I'm more worried we'll run into thugs using the sewers as their base."
"Haven't asked her to, but I can," Jason notes and relays that request to Kimon. Namely, any news of the aircar.
"Thugs," Tracy grumbles. "Think another group has noticed the fall of the Mavericks and will be moving in?"
"One problem at a time. If we try to consider everything we'll do nothing," Jason remarks.
Kimon accesses news channels. "Six news channels including CNN Worldwide are covering the standoff of Dantech versus Avatars including the addition of Arcadia legal forces, as the latest chapter in the second major breakdown of the Avatars VR game in four years." In split-vision, Jason can see the live newsfeed camera watching three humanoid forms departing the office in cloaks. They are just now embarking into a wide-bubble hovercar.
As they complete the final part of their loop, Inari moves ghostlike through the debris that accompanies parts of the sewer system where portions of the roof have fallen in. The white dog-humanoid stubs his toes painfully on some of the debris... But manages to keep from howling.
The sewer passes beneath an abandoned subway station-- logically, the toilets from the station still connect to the pipes here, even though the rust on the pipes suggests they haven't even been used in years.
Above is a maintenance hatch that should lead to the station proper. Graffiti has been spraypainted over the North Bend Transport Authority logo on the wall, but it's dry and old, fading.
Cadena perks his ears. "I ... don't hear anything unusual," he whispers to Tracy. "Perhaps I should go first to check it out?"
Jason pauses and hmms. "Did anyone else hear something? I could swear I heard movement..."
"I don't think anyone is out there," Tracy whispers.. but still isn't about to holster her taser.
Inari tilts her head. "I'll go up to check it out. Cadena, with me?"
"From which direction?" Tracy whispers to Jason, sticking close to him while the others scout.
Cadena nods, following Inari's lead, and returning his staff to the sling so he has his hands free to climb.
Jason only shrugs at the question. "No idea," he admits.
The golden vixen slides the maintenance hatch to the side and then eels up into the station, her black jumpsuit fading into the shadows.
Tracy, therefore, looks up at the ceiling of the tunnel, near the hatch.
There are cobwebs.
Just to be thorough, Tracy shines her lamp into the cobwebs. There might be a hidden security camera or motion detector up there, she reasons.
The light catches the cobwebs, turning them briefly into white veils draped from the rafters. Tiny spiders scuttle into hiding.
The dog-humanoid pokes his head back down through the shaft. "All clear," he reports. "It looks and smells like there were squatters here, but I'd guess it's been a year or so since anyone's been here for any length of time."
"After you?" Tracy says to Jason.
"Fine by me. The sewer trolls can grab you for their next sacrifice," Jason quips to Tracy just before shimmying up the ladder after the other two.
Cadena stays by the hatch opening, to help Jason up and out, pointing out a few patches of grease(?) to avoid.
Tracy hurries up after Jason, and does not make any comments about the view.
Cadena quietly flicks a couple of white spiders off of Tracy's hair while she's otherwise occupied.
It seems unlikely that Dantech would have units patrolling this far out, in the abandoned sewer network. Instead, most of their forces have been gathered at Avatars LLC, in what looks like a weird game of mecha sumo wrestling, as their forces push and pull at Arcadia and Avatars security, trying to englobe the aircar and prevent it from reaching open airspace. And then it happens-- just as the aircar's about to break through, one of the Dantech robots opens fire on it.
Kimon reports, "Ms. Arcadia has gone on the air to condemn Dantech's callous disregard for human life and suffering and protest their use of armed force to prosecute a legal offense."
"Yep, they shot down the air car," Jason summarizes for everyone once he's up and away from the questionable pools of liquid. "Which means they don't care about being prosecuted for murder."
The abandoned subway station is apparently clear. Loose gravel crunches underneath as they make their way outside. It will be something of a hike but so far there's no signs of any intruders in these tunnels.
"Really?" Cadena sounds shocked. "I guess that means they weren't intent upon taking any of us alive, either."
"Are you really surprised? I'm not," Jason notes.
Inari points out, "Or they want us dead or alive... But not in someone else's hands."
"I doubt it was about the NDA then, and more about the recovered Zeus data," Tracy guesses.
"Anyway, lots more walking to do, so we best do it. I also have to figure out how to get the sneaksuit out of my office along with any weaponry I can salvage, without being detected. May as well hand over the suit to the poor guy at Iron grip and at least spare him the position we're in," Jason notes as he resumes walking.
"You didn't get a chance to bug it though," Tracy laments. "I don't suppose you can launch your armor via remote control?"
The hacked Einhorn is right where Jason left it, about a block's walking distance up the tunnel from the abandoned Mav's Maverick base. Police caution tape covers the tunnel outside the base, warning that this is a crime scene under investigation, but there are no police and the security camera covering the entrance is powered down.
"I hope they didn't confiscate everything," Tracy notes, her stomach growling.
"I'm going to walk the Einhorn back to the base," Jason tells the others, "If you want to scout it out and make sure it is secure, please feel free." So, he heads in the direction of the mammoth crowd-control bot.
As Tracy approaches the base, the loud 'THUNK!' of the Einhorn coming to life makes her jump, thinking that there are defenders hidden in the base, about to spring out. A second later, her senses belatedly realize that the sound came from behind.
RIU hops onto the robot, giving Jason a clear 'Can I drive?' look.
"It's all right, Onee-sama!" Cadena assures Tracy, gesturing to the powering-up robot. "I think it's on our side." He walks over and gives it a pat. "It's good to see you're still in working order."
Inari gives Cadena an odd look as he says 'onee-sama', then smirks as she follows.
"Hey, this security tape is alarmed," Tracy says after noticing the wiring.
"Not today, sorry," Jason tells the little dragon as he takes control of the basic motor functions to steer the behemoth into a defensive position in the base (as well have a chance to work on it).
The minidragon pouts.
"Maybe there's some way to bypass it?" Cadena asks of Tracy. "Perhaps I could scrounge for some supplies you can use." He starts to hunt around, keeping well clear of the security tape.
"I've got my pick-kit, hold on," Tracy says, following the tape to find the communications relay.
There are still a large number of bullet holes in the far wall, where the train car lifting system hangs over the tracks. The garage door has been shut, and caution tape festoons it and the smaller double doors of the abandoned station lobby gaudily.
With a bit of tweaking, Tracy gets a signal loop going to fool the alarm. She smiles proudly towards Jason - who of course is busy with the big robot. So she does a RIU-pout as well.
The heavy 'Crowd Protection Mecha' trundles up toward the station.
"I'm sorry, Onee-sama," Cadena says to Tracy, as he comes back. "I haven't found - oh. Say, that's very impressive work there. Have you done this sort of thing before?"
"Jason taught me how," Tracy says. Then adds, "Just in case I ever got kidnapped and locked up somewhere, not so I could break in to places or anything!"
"Very handy," Cadena observes. He sniffs around, still keeping wary of the security tape, just in case.
Kimon updates Jason on the developing status. "Security Vice President Holly Trudeau is mourning the death of her daughter and condemning Dantech for its bloodthirsty attack. Head of Legal Mark Trudeau has demanded Dantech answer for its crimes in an international court. For the moment the Dantech NDA assault has stepped down in severity. Avatars LLC is recovering the aircar debris, and Arcadia Developments has requested access to the black box recording."
"Inari, check this stuff out," Tracy calls, once she's inside the storehouse. "Armor!"
Inari comes back from doing a recon of the station. "It looks clear," she reports, meeting up with Tracy. "Going for the SWAT look?"
"Okay, now ... first thing is to get set up is a million point communication relay so you two can contact the Arcadia family and discuss the situation," Jason says as he clambers off the bot. "Then I have to figure out a way to get Kimon to dump stuff down a sewer line for us to go pick up. We'll need the sneaksuit and any of my tesla-weaponry that can be moved. I only have four hours to get that suit back to Iron grip, so that's going to be my priority right after the comm link work is done." So ... it's off to find radio and communication equipment in here for him.
RIU curls up around Jason's shoulders snugly. It has faith in its master! Even if its master won't let it drive the big robot.
"You're going to Irongrip Security?" Inari asks. "But... What if it's a trap?"
Cadena looks to Jason. "I take it that means we aren't going to be holing up here after all?"
"Oh there is no way I'm going. I'll drop it off at some location and just have them pick it up," Jason notes.
"If it covers us up and lets us mingle with security forces, I'll dress up as a pink tap-dancing beaver," Tracy notes, as she digs out anything useful.
The golden vixen smiles. "Ah, and then we can keep an eye on them and see if they were going to try to ambush you?"
Cadena blinks a few times, trying to make sense of the pink tap-dancing beaver reference. He shrugs and gives up.
"I didn't say that," Jason notes to Cadena. "There are still things that need to be dealt with and this is going to be our center of operations for now. I have no desire to be the cause of death for some poor guy who can't say no to his daughter and borrowed company property to make her happy, is all."
"Huh? I'm not going.. I just want to not look like a vulnerable fugitive," Tracy says.
"Well, I wonder if there's any way to get this security system working again, to work in our favor?" Cadena asks no one in particular. "I'm concerned that we might need a heads-up, in case the police come back by to resume their investigation anytime soon."
"And ... oh, right. There is that old maintenance passage under my home that connects to the sewers. It's there for private goods transport. Gang problems at all. Nothing at all to do with buying illegal equipment," Jason comments. "Let me get Kimon in collecting what we can reasonably transport and dropping it down there. Then I'll see to the security system"
"I wonder if the comm system in my apartment is still turned on," Tracy muses, as she tries various bits of armor over her jumpsuit. "What would make a good final link in a communications chain, wouldn't it?"
Kimon chimes. "Understood. Packing requested goods."
"Only if you don't mind your apartment being raided and ransacked," Jason notes to Tracy.
"I wish we knew some.. media.. types," Tracy says, then looks at Inari. "I assume it already has been," she tells Jason. "Say, think we could get Voya to broadcast all of Dantech's dirty secrets?"
"Breakfast is ready!" Cadena calls out from the mini-kitchen in the employee break room, as smells drift through the base. "I found food stores. And, yes, cooking is much easier with opposable thumbs."
Inari looks at Tracy questioningly.
"They might be able to block traditional news outlets, but why would they be monitoring your stuff, Inari?" Tracy reasons. "You could reappear, and tell the whole world what happened."
"Anyway, there are thousands of anonymous relayers in the world. I just have to get into that network. Give me a bit and I'll get have something hooked up that should be extremely difficult to trace. I can even use the old metal sewer pipes as transmission lines; I just have to account for the signal attenuation," Jason says as he starts grabbing bits, tools, and other odd junk to go about assembling a hackers comm system. "And no, we are not turning Inari over to those vultures."
The golden vixen sniffs at the air. Are those... Sausages? With real meat? "I could, and I don't particularly care about whether Dantech has to shut down their Q-Cores business, but a lot of companies might be very unhappy," she says as she beelines for the breakroom.
"Dibs on the bacon," Tracy claims next, and heads for the kitchen. "Not even a press release from hiding?" she calls back.
"What? That she's run off to be with someone that makes her happy?" Jason yells as he wobbles around, trying to manage carrying the odd collection of junk he's gathered. What he intends to do with that colander ... who knows.
"For that matter, I wonder what's happening on the game forums," Tracy notes, as she sees what Cadena has cooked up.
RIU helps Jason by carrying small odds and ends! Zoom.
"Ms. Arcadia taught me to cook," Cadena claims, as he serves out portions, making a small plate of "pancake balls" to set aside for RIU, with little stylized "lightning strikes" he's glazed them with with a blueberry gel-topping packet he found. "Well, it was really for Margaret's benefit, but I picked up fairly well by example."
"I hope I get to keep you then, Cadena," Tracy says, as she digs in.
The mini-dragon pauses in ferrying Jason's tools to give Cadena an enthusiastic Nintendo-style victory tune by way of appreciation... But it doesn't actually eat the pancake balls.
The mini-dragon is, after all, electricity-powered.
Cadena's ears blush. He hastens to pick up the plate he prepared for Jason, and carries it out to the garage.
"You should be able to contact Ms. Arcadia now without it being traced. You just have to wear that on your head when you call," Jason explains to Cadena and gestures to the colander.
"It's voice only, I imagine?" Tracy asks, balancing her plate in one hand.
When no one's looking, Inari sneaks one of RIU's pancake balls and snaps it up.
"Ah," Cadena notes, regarding the device curiously. He clears out a space to set Jason's plate and drink down, and then goes over to find a spot to sit and try on the colander-helmet.
Jason rubs his forehead, then laughs. "I didn't think you would actually try it on," he admits, "I was just joking about that part. I ... nevermind. You don't need it. Just sit down in front of the camera. I've got it superimposing a randomizing background in behind you so no one can see where we are."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-09-21-taking-inventory.htmlIn the Mavericks hideout, somewhere in the depths of the city, by an abandoned subway line, uncomfortably close to the sewers, there's a treasure trove of gear that needs to be sorted through, if it's to be put to use for trying to save the world.
While Jason tends to one of the particulars of that plan, Cadena and Tracy are left with the task of taking inventory and hunting for anything that might be usable.
"I wish we had a robot for this," Tracy notes as she goes through boxes, digital clip-board in hand.
The white dog-humanoid looks over a device somewhat uncertainly. It's an Eagle Stun-bayonet, though the "bayonet" is a misnomer, as there are no sharp surfaces evident. The more-or-less cylindrical device has multi-purpose attachments to be mounted onto any number of assault rifles, but right now Cadena compares it to his staff. He looks up. "We have a rob-- oh, right." He shakes his head. "Right, I doubt that's in its programming."
Opening a case, Tracy lifts out a fancy side-arm. "These things are heavier than you think they'd be," she says. "Is there anything you'd like me to keep watch for while I sort my half of the room?"
"Well," Cadena says, "I've been trying to find something to add a little more 'punch' if I'm going to be wading into a fight. However, I'd prefer something that won't be ... well ... lethal, if I can help it." He turns the stun-stick over in his hand, regarding it. "Of course, none of this comes with a manual. I should probably test this before actually using it." He fiddles with it, and a few sparks light up from around the business end, causing him to jerk back, ears flattening in alarm. He shudders. "I don't think this was put away properly."
"Can you actually use your staff as a weapon?" Tracy asks, as she sorts through ammo packs. "I mean.. have you ever been a fighter in any of the VR games you played with Margie?"
Cadena lets out an embarrassed laugh. "Yes, I've used the staff, but it's never been very effective, not even in VR. As for being a fighter ... well, I fought with an 'axe' in Metal Galaxy Epic. It looked rather suspiciously like that prototype that they let me borrow at Avatars Headquarters. I wasn't expecting to find something quite like that; I just asked if they happened to have a guitar, but I guess that sort of design is popular with fantasy bards."
The dog-humanoid drops one of the stun-sticks into a backpack to the site, taking some notes, and then he carefully sorts out the rest and puts them over with all the assault-weapon accessories (bayonets, scopes, laser sights) he's sorted out. "Oh! I found another military webbing set. These are good for distributing weight and keeping your ammunition handy. It's just a bit ... well ... bulky and conspicuous. Not something I could hide under my robes."
"We can use it to attach things to the Einhorn though," Tracy notes. She's found several cases of 'bolts' is starting to sort them out. "I need to find some Eagle Security armor too, if possible.."
"Ah," Cadena says. "I think I saw some over in the lockers over there. The previous occupants apparently already dug through them a bit, so they're really disordered, but I'm sure something can be pieced together. The trouble will be finding the right fit."
The dog-humanoid pauses, considering. "I just got this strange mental image of what it might be like if this is a regular business for your family - all this adventuring and such - whether you've ever gone out shopping with your mother for protective gear - you know, proper fit, in the latest styles, that sort of thing."
"My regular clothes are lightly armored, actually," Tracy admits. "Ever since the attack four years ago, I've worn some sort of armor.."
"Ah," Cadena says, nodding. "That makes sense. It's really hard on laundry machines, though. Ms. Arcadia had all of Margaret's 'going out' clothes cleaned by a service, of course, so I don't really know much about the particulars." He looks at Tracy, considering. "Is it true that you used to dress all in black and neon-orange?"
"Yes.. but who.." Tracy starts to ask, then just shakes her head. "I should be grateful that mother didn't show you baby pictures of me.."
"Actually..." Cadena stops, clearing his throat. "Why would that be?" he says, trying to cover.
"You mean.. why did I dress like that?" Tracy asks.
"Ah ... sure," Cadena says. "I really don't have an in-depth knowledge of recent history past, oh, four years ago or so, other than what I've read up, and fashion hasn't been a particular area of focus."
"It was expensive clothing meant to look shabby and jarring," Tracy says. "It was part of the Neon-Goth look.. I was just really rebellious at the time, is all. I was bouncing between my parents' houses and.. I was just stupid."
Cadena's ears flick. "No, please, don't call yourself stupid." He frowns, pausing in sorting out some boxes, to look over at Tracy. "Bouncing between houses is bound to be disruptive. And, besides ... actually, orange and black might not be such a bad look on you."
Tracy gives Cadena an odd look, and asks, "Are you partly color-blind like a real dog is?"
The white dog-humanoid says, "No, but ... I respect that you have far more expertise in these matters than I do, Onee-sama. As I noted earlier, it's not like I've ever been responsible for picking out my own attire. Putting on that lab coat I do believe represents the first time I ever had to dress myself."
"Er, actually, on the topic of disruption," Cadena says, even though that was a little while ago, "I suppose you're missing your exams now, aren't you? Did you have settled what major you'd be pursuing?"
"Anyway.. it's find for fourteen-year-olds but not for me now," Tracy says. She checks a bolt, realizes HE means 'High Explosive' and gingerly puts it back into its case. "Why the interest in .. how I dress?" she asks.
"It's a new concern for me," Cadena says, somewhat sheepishly. "I haven't had to put much thought into it before."
"But you won't be dressing like a girl," Tracy points out. "Unless you need lots of space between your fur and fabric to keep cool."
"Not voluntarily, no," Cadena says, "but Margaret wasn't very particular about ... hmm. Well, after all, I'm a dog, you see. Eh.... Oh, look! More weapons!" He pulls out another shotgun to add to the stack. It's one of those "Spazztic!" models, with the gratuitous pumping action so would-be action heroes can rack the shotgun just like the movies for dramatic effect, without wasting a perfectly good shell in the process.
"Speaking of that," Tracy says, "I didn't really look under your robes, but can you still run on all fours like that or do you have an actual butt and stuff now, so will need pants?"
"Er ... well, yes, that's a valid concern," Cadena says. "No, running on all fours like this would not be practical and, yes, I've developed a concern for propriety that I didn't have to worry about before."
"Ah ... right," Cadena says. "You know, actually, I was kind of hoping that if we were working together here, I'd get to learn a little more about you. I mean, I've been following you around for ... four days now? Three? It's hard to keep track. And I still don't really know much about you. Your favorite foods, what sort of foods you can't stand, preferred colors, music, what sorts of games - aside from those involving lots of running and jumping of course - that sort of thing."
"Okay, maybe some martial-arts style pants would be best then," Tracy says, and looks through a manual for the Eagle Bolter handgun.
The dog-humanoid nods quietly, sorting through the gas masks, and checking the seals.
"You really want to know all that stuff?" Tracy asks, surprised. "I mean.. well, I figured you'd be going back to Margie.." she admits.
Cadena looks up, over to Tracy. "Is that what you think would be best? I mean ..." He pauses. Perhaps he isn't certain what he means. "I suppose if Fuseli were here, you wouldn't exactly need two pets. But ... right now, he's just virtual, right? So I might still be useful in the Real World."
"That's not the point," Tracy says. "You've known me for a few days, and Margie for.. months? Years? I mean.. I don't know what I mean!" The girl throws her hands up in frustration, and then says, "I don't know if you like me or if you're just programmed to like whoever my mother tells you to serve. So, it's got to be your choice, and I don't see that you'd choose a stranger over someone you've known for probably most of your existence.."
Cadena stops sorting for a bit, frowning. "You're not the only one ... who's accused me of that," he says. "I've pondered over the problem before. I guess you must have viewed the interrogation footage, then?"
"The what footage?" Tracy asks.
"The ..." Cadena shakes his head. "I was talking with Sasha earlier. It was pretty stupid of me, now that I think about it, telling her that anything she told me was confidential. I mean, Eddie was right there - or one of them, anyway - and the recorders were still going. But ... I digress. The point was just that there's the matter of my programming. I've always had it. It's not all something that Avatars LLC stuck in me somehow. I think it was part of whatever part of me was supposed to be an Avatar companion - an expression of that Link-Avatar relationship. But I'm not just a product of my directives. I'm capable of feeling things, too."
"Well then: could you walk away from my side if you wanted?" Tracy asks. "Or would it take some sort of external order? Like, if you really wanted to be with Margie again, but where told to be with me, which would you follow?"
Cadena pauses a moment, staring for longer than is strictly necessary at a box of 12-gauge "non-lethal riot-control" shells. "No, I could not actually abandon you simply because I wanted to, if such a thought struck me. I did not voluntarily abandon you back at the battle. That was not part of my plan at all," he says. "In fact, it still hurts me when I think about it. However, if I felt a driving desire to leave you and be elsewhere, there is nothing that would prevent me from asking you ... or suggesting to you that there might be a better arrangement than my continued service to you. The decision would ultimately be yours, but I am not denied the ability to hold an opinion in the matter."
"See, that creeps me out a bit," Tracy admits, as she sorts through holsters and clips. "It sounds like you're mind-controlled or a robot, and I don't want to think of you like that. It also makes me feel guilty about stuff."
Cadena shakes his head. "See, now that just shows that I'm not really a robot, or at least not a very well-programmed one. If I was, I wouldn't be giving you such half-baked answers. I'd just be a happy dog all the time." He grins faintly. "The truth of the matter is, I wish I could be in two places at once. I wish my imaginary alternate selves could just split off and do their own thing. Brother Cadena the peaceful healer type could go and tend to Margaret and play games with her and help her with her lessons, and help her mother with the chores. And whatever's left that has a little more fighting spirit could stick here with you and help you kick some Wild Hunt and Dantech and Face Reality tail."
"But have no doubt," Cadena says, "I can speak my mind - in fact, a bit too much." He resumes sorting. "If you give me a direction that I really, really don't want to follow, I'll let you know. I'll still do what you say, especially when we're under pressure for time, but that's not just my 'programming.' I want to be reliable."
"We all wish for stuff like that, but it wouldn't work," Tracy says. "You need everything to function in any of those roles. It's more the whole.. well, if I ask you to do something, you can refuse, right? Because it's not a direct order? What's the difference between the two?"
"That's up to you to spell out," Cadena says. "Language is a flexible thing. It's my duty to learn your intent, as best as I can manage. After all, we might be in a situation where you need to ask me to do something, but you can't be seen to be ordering me to do that. I'm not forced to be a literalist. You could, for example, make it clear to me that if you say something like 'Run away, Cadena!' it really means, 'Pretend to flee, and then unload on them with everything you've got when they aren't expecting it.'"
"In fact, it might even be useful to establish some sort of 'secret code' of sorts," Cadena says. "I did that with Avatars. That's how I managed to get security to be ready to subdue Sasha and me while I was pretending to be asking for clearance to get in, once it seemed to me Sasha didn't really have everyone's best interests in mind."
"That sounds complicated," the girl says, massaging her forehead with her fingers for a moment. "I'm barely able to think about what I'm supposed to do, much less what you need to be doing too. I wish I could order you to.. not take orders. But then you wouldn't have to follow that order either, and it's all back to square one again. Why didn't my mom explain this stuff to me?" she says with a sigh.
"Ah," Cadena notes, "I think she was expecting to have a little more time to bring you up to speed on things before everything turned ... weird." He pauses. "In any case, it is not my intention to make you uncomfortable. If you ask me to do something, I will respect the nuance of your request, and, as politely as I can manage, decline if I feel any significant disinclination to comply. If it would make you feel any better, perhaps you can ask me to do something that I really wouldn't want to do, and I can demonstrate by not doing it." He looks as if he's trying to think of something.
"I'll take your word for it," Tracy says. "I don't think I've really asked you to do much so far. Frankly, when mom gave you to me.. I thought I'd be expected to follow your orders, since you were my guardian."
"Well," Cadena says, "I was rather surprised that she really didn't give me much direction on my assignment. But then, when I was assigned to the Arcadia household, Ms. Arcadia was responsible for outlining expectations, and limits to Margaret's ability to order me about. After all, it would not do if I became a facilitator for Margaret acting against her mother's wishes."
"But really," Cadena says, "haven't you gone through all this sort of thing with Fuseli already? What does he think about following orders when you're Tracer? And ... I'm still not really sure how you became Tracer again, without signing into the game."
"Ms. Arcadia was used to ordering others around, people and robots," Tracy says, as she opens a locker and examines the body armor and jumpsuits inside. "Fuseli.. is my Link. I never really thought about what he thought about anything. I was young and self-centered back then."
"And about me and Tracer.. we were split up during the Fracture," Tracy notes. "I was locked out, and WHITE ran Tracer using a copy or model of my personality, because.. she made decisions like I would. It was all just another way to use me against my mother though, like when Blake or someone else in on it all burned down my dad's house around us. And like the whole Wild Hunt fiasco of trying to kidnap me for leverage."
"Hmm," Cadena says. "I didn't think of it that way. Yes, from RIU's footage, your mother did seem to have an emotional reaction to Virtual Tracer. I suppose that couldn't have been accidental." He frowns. "I was actually fascinated by the prospect of a virtual-you that was self-aware. Visiting her and speaking with her was on my very long to-do list right as soon as I was assigned to you. I was hoping I might learn more about how to be more useful to you that way ... but also, I was a bit curious to find out how a truly self-aware artificial entity thought - especially the Champion of the Light." He says that last bit with a certain air of awe, smiling. "I was never really very close to my 'fellow' entities at Omega Lab, and most of the time I was with them, we were either 'in character' in various exercises, or being interrogated by a psychologist ... so they weren't keen on further interrogation by me."
"Well.. Tracer was more popular than I was when I was playing her," Tracy admits. "My own character did better without me. Again, I was 14 and didn't know better, so I was hurt by it. I hadn't connected to her in years, until we actually entered VR again and I was given a choice of who to be."
"Tracer's popularity was greatly helped by the fact that she was the Champion of the Light - and recognized as such across the Diadem - and she was the only one who had a laser gatling mounted on her flying Avatar companion," Cadena notes. "If you'd been given that sort of opportunity while you were still signed in, I'm sure you could have milked it for plenty of popularity yourself. Anyone given sufficient title and power is going to garner some attention, after all. It's nothing against you." He frowns. "But ... what was it like, becoming Tracer again? Did you speak with the other 'you' at all? Did you gain any of her experiences?"
The dog-humanoid returns to sorting, going through some private weapon lockers with locks that have already been cracked by Jason or Tracy, but not properly searched yet. He pulls out a "pre-sawed-off" shotgun that looks as if it's designed to double for bashing in skulls when both barrels are already fired. He considers it a moment, then tucks it into the backpack, and goes back to grab a couple of boxes of shotgun shells to toss in after it.
"It was.. hard to describe," Tracy says in a quiet voice, her hands just moving on their own through the jumpsuits. "She said she needed me, that she wasn't complete. I guess she's the only person who ever said that to me. It was good to be together again. I didn't get her memories though; at least, I don't think I did."
Cadena stops again in mid-packing, looking off. "Maybe I would like to talk to her some day. Maybe she knows something." He shakes his head, then gets back to work. "Well, I'm glad that you worked that out. I wish I could figure out how Sasha got Moonlight into the Real World - and how Moonlight could go for extended periods while invisible, not like how my powers burn out so quickly. It'd probably be nice to have Fuseli around with his powers like that. The Real World hasn't really adapted itself to deal with magic yet ... or technology that's indistinguishable from magic."
"It's probably because Sasha went through the resolution upgrade that Jason did," Tracy guesses. "She's the only one that had a Link, and Jason didn't do anything to her like he had to with Akiko and Inari. So maybe the process extended to Moonlight, somehow. Who knows?"
Cadena ponders that. "Right. You might be right there. I heard that she had an implant. Maybe the system 'translated' the link by using Mr. Edwards as a model - and the implant in his head that he used to communicate with RIU. Perhaps Officer Cranston didn't get the same treatment because he had already established a different sort of 'connection' with Mara, so there was no perceived need to translate anything. And Vice President Trudeau, of course, was a 'Sorcerer,' so she was exempt from any such meddling."
"You were never anyone's Link though, right?" Tracy asks, finally selecting a jumpsuit. "And unlike Moonlight - you get to wear pants! This should be big enough to fit over your armor, try it on," she says, tossing the jumpsuit to Cadena.
"Oof!" Cadena catches the jumpsuit just barely, as he wasn't on guard for that. "I don't think it'll fit over my armor." He raps on his robes, emphasizing the bulky removable armor segments underneath. "This isn't my original bullet-weave. I had to put away my armor while running around in the lab coat and scrubs. Hmm. I really should have asked the robot if I could keep the scrubs." He moves to change, and then his ears blush. "Oh. Right. I should probably find somewhere to change. Sorry."
"Rats, you'll need new armor then," Tracy says, trying to get into a one-size-larger jumpsuit herself, so she can still wear her regular clothes underneath.
The dog-humanoid opens up a locker door, and props up an opaque "wall shield" to make a divider to change behind. "Well, I suppose I can cram the armor into my carry-bag for our trip out to the construction site, if that's what you're concerned about. But ... I don't think they have dog-man laborers there, do they? I'm not sure I'll be able to fit in." He grumbles. "Yes, we really could use some robots here." He turns around in circles behind the makeshift divider while trying to reach his back. "Aha! Got it!"
"That's why you'll be wearing a helmet!" Tracy says, pulling out the largest a riot helmet she can find.
"Oh," Cadena says. "That's a good idea. Whoops." There's a crashing noise. "I'm all right. I'm all ... right! I'll get the hang of this. I need to learn."
"One leg at a time," Tracy suggests, shaking her head. She begins setting out pieces of armor to finish out the disguises. "I hope your nose doesn't stick up against the blast shield on this thing," she comments.
There's a bit more shuffling behind the makeshift divider, then some snaps. "There. I ... oh. Right. Tail. Ow. Okay, I'll work on that. Uhm ... we could see if there's any fog-guard in here for the blast shield. Or maybe that's already built into the visor treatment." He shuffles around some more. "Aha. Okay. Fortunately, I don't think I have a habit of wagging my tail very often, so I should be fine as long as I don't sit down quickly." He finally steps out, holding out his arms. "How do I look? I mean, if I had a helmet on?"
Tracy blinks a bit and looks over the suited-up hound. "A little lumpy where your fur is thicker, but that'll be covered by the armor," she says, and brings the helmet over. Her lips purse and push to the right side of her face as she ponders the issues presented by Cadena's veritable mane of hair and the fact that he has no proper chin for the helmet strap to around.
"Maybe the padding will be enough," Tracy says, and tries to get the helmet onto Cadena's head. "The earphones won't match up though.."
"We might need extra padding under the crown to get the helmet to fit," the dog-humanoid suggests, stooping down to kneel on one knee (carefully choosing to kneel the way so that his tail isn't needlessly twisted in the process) and holding his chin up, ears at attention. "I think yours fits a lot better ... er ... but that's to be expected, of course." He ponders. "So, are we going as construction workers, or security? I'm sorry I never really thought out the particulars properly."
"Security," Tracy says, getting the helmet situated as best she can before turning on the auto-fit padding. Impact-absorbing gel is shuttled between the various cells of the padding to find the best 'fit' for Cadena's skull.
"Arcadia Design has a presence at the site, at least," Cadena notes. "When discussing the particulars with Ms. Arcadia, I got the gist that she'd make sure we'd get in. I just ... didn't really pry out how. That might have tipped off anyone who was listening in on where exactly we were going - and that it was a construction site." He eyes the gel warily. "That is going to cure before you push it onto my head, right? I'm not going to lose much hair when it comes back off? I mean, not that I am objecting or anything. It might not be a problem at all. Just asking."
"It's memory gel; it'll pull back when we set the helmet to default," Tracy notes. "The important thing is that it stays on." She next fiddles with the faceplate. She folds down the head's up visor, which is solid, and then checks to see if the shield section can slide down to block out the rest of Cadena's face. "Too bad you can't suck your nose in," she notes.
"I could ... er ... try," Cadena offers. He squints, and looks as if he's concentrating, his nostrils pinching up. After a while, he opens one eye. "Is it working?"
"No, but it doesn't matter," Tracy says. "We can use your gas mask instead."
"That makes sense," Cadena says. "Ah ... hmm. Oh yes! Before I get my head stuck in a helmet and can't talk very easily, I was wondering ... do we have any idea what we're going to do after this? After dropping off the data? Do we have some sort of plan? It's all right if you don't want to tell me what it is, but I just wanted to make sure we had one."
"I don't know," Tracy says. "DanTech is still at the heart of things - we're going to have to deal with them at some point," Tracy says. "But we need to find Jason Zero - or 'Brian Montagne' if that's what he goes by. Just because BLACK is down, doesn't mean we've really stopped anything."
Cadena frowns. "I didn't recall that alias. I probably should have mentioned it to Ms. Arcadia, just in case." He ponders. "And, yes, you're quite right. It seems as if there are a lot of people who want something to happen. I can't help but wonder, even back when your mother was fighting the Convergence, whether there was a larger group at work. In RIU's records, when that entity - I'll assume it was the WHITE - was talking to Andrei, it kept referring to 'we' and 'us.' The WHITE doesn't refer to itself in the plural. And if only the BLACK was going along with the WHITE - or pretending to - I'd have to wonder why it wasn't a little more forthright in its opposition."
"I guess," Cadena says, "it just makes me wonder whether or not there weren't other parties backing up the likes of Andrei and Blake, here, in the Real World, even before the AIs went rogue. It just seems like it would take so much monumental negligence for things to have gotten that far otherwise. But then, maybe I just want to find a villain to blame it all on ... a real villain, and not just some puppet or a confused computer following conflicting directives."
"See, that's the thing.. DanTech AI is different than Avatars AI," Tracy says. "I didn't even know DanTech had working AI. There were a lot of others involved with Blake.. but I don't think they ever found one that confessed to the firebombing."
The dog nods. "I guess we can't hope to solve all the mysteries, but it'd be nice to at least buy some time, and 'stave off our inevitable doom,' as Lord Darkheart would accuse us of doing. After all, life is like that. Keep staving off that doom for as long as we can manage, right?" He grins. "And somehow it'll all work out." He ponders. "I'm sure this will work out, by the way. And I'm very glad for the chance that I've had to be fighting by your side in all this."
Tracy blinks and eyes Cadena, pausing midway in getting the gas-mask. "You are?" she asks. "You mean me or.. Lady Tracer?"
"You," Cadena emphasizes. "Don't get me wrong. I would still love a chance to speak with Lady Tracer, your virtual counterpart, but that's primarily because she is merely an echo of you ... and because I feel like that's something of what I am: an echo of someone else. That doesn't mean I'm not a person on some level. I'm trying to make something of myself, after all. But I'd like a chance to get some tips from someone else who's wrestling with the same issue."
"But even if I never set foot into the VR world again," Cadena notes, "there's plenty that's fascinating right here. I honestly love Margaret, and I deeply care about Ms. Arcadia, I want to see them again, and I want them to be happy. But I'm still going to be ... honestly, I'm not sure what I would be there."
"Well.. thank you," Tracy says, and brings the canine-gas-mask over to see if it can be fit to the helmet. "Not many people seem to enjoy my company. Maybe whatever process HECATE has for rewriting Margaret's DNA can make a clone of you as well. Then you can be in two places at once, like you wanted!"
"Maybe," Cadena says. "I don't know that I want to seriously wish for something like that. I don't really understand the implications." He pauses a bit to raise his chin again, ready to be fitted. "As for Margaret, I want to at least show up and let her know I'm still around, but I don't know that Ms. Arcadia will really need me around. Seeing me as a humanoid might make things uncomfortable. She doesn't see me as a man - I mean, I'm not human - but she has some ... issues. It could complicate things. And I'm not really so certain I want to turn into a four-legged dog again just to make things more comfortable for everyone. I'm not even certain if that would work."
"But with you," Cadena says, "I will obey your commands. I want to serve you well. And yet, you don't really make me feel like I'm just a pet or a robot. You make me feel almost real. It's ... it's kind of nice, actually."
"You talk more than any man I know," Tracy points out, "and my dad is a lawyer. So maybe that will count in your favor. And yeah, you've got hands, pants and you talk, so.. you're a person as far as I'm concerned. Actually, the pants just cinch it. The fact that you didn't need batteries was the other big factor."
"Oh," Cadena says. "I'll try to reel back on the talking. I really need to work on that listening part. I do want to learn more about you ... and somehow I keep talking about me, don't I?" His ears droop. "Unless you just don't like talking about yourself for some reason? Because I don't want to make you uncomfortable."
"Turquoise," Tracy says, adjusting the straps on the mask, before letting it hang from just one side of the helmet for now.
Cadena sits as perfectly still as he can manage, while Tracy works with the helmet. Finally, it seems that he can't stand it anymore. "Turquoise?"
"You asked me what my favorite color was," Tracy replies. "Turquoise. Nobody's ever asked me that before."
"Oh!" Cadena says, brightening up, and then, "Ow!" He reaches down with one hand to his leg. "Sorry. Involuntary tail-wag. I'll work on that. Uhm ... favorite food? Because I look forward to cooking again."
This takes a moment of thought. "Waffles, I think," she says. "They make me think of my grandmother."
"Ooo," Cadena says. "I'll make those next time for breakfast." He ponders. "Ah ... what sort of career path do you hope to pursue after completing your education?"
"Well, I've been studying Virtual Design," Tracy notes. "There's an internship I can get in Dr. Burgundy's group. Although after all of this.. there might be whole new fields starting up in Artificial Reality instead of Virtual Reality.."
"Fascinating," Cadena says. "Margaret hopes to be an architect when she grows up - though she really loves planning entire landscapes in virtual reality. I'm sure she'd love a chance to get some tips from you." He ponders, then asks, "After we defeat the bad guys and save the world, other than continuing your studies, do you have any other objectives you'd like to accomplish?"
"I don't know, get a real life?" Tracy says, shrugging. "With real friends who know the real me and not having to worry about being abducted or murdered because of my parents. I want to be worried about being abducted and murdered because of myself."
Cadena's eye-ridges arch at that particular wording. "I ... I can understand that," he at last says. "You don't happen to need your very own personal arch-nemesis, do you? No, that wasn't a serious question. That was just something random that suddenly popped into my head. I think it was an attempt at humor, but in poor taste. Ah...." He looks like he's working on the next one.
"Actually," Cadena amends, "what would constitute a 'real life' for you? That sounds rather appealing."
"No, it's just.. venting frustration," Tracy says. "Stuff happens that messes my life up, and it's really not anything to do with me, personally. So yes, I did make Sasha my arch-nemesis just for the illusion that I mattered in the scheme of things. But she popped that bubble. I want.. to not have to deal with any of that, you know?" She looks at Cadena and does her lip-twisty-half-pout expression. "Maybe it would help if I gave you actual examples?"
Cadena starts to nod, but then realizes he's supposed to keep his head still. "Yes, I think it would, if you don't mind."
Tracy pauses, then resets the helmet padding so she can lift it off Cadena's head. "No need to wear this until we need to. Okay.. where to start. The Neon-Goth stuff: I did that because I felt ignored and helpless when my parents broke up. It let me use that to create my own sense of drama and angst.. then my mom and everyone got sucked into VR and since Blake couldn't kill her off directly in the Diadem, he came after me and my dad in the real world. So.. I lost everything, really. But I got to help, at least. But after that.. I couldn't tell anyone what happened! Someone started a rumor that my house was burned down because either my dad or I were involved with a gang. So suddenly I became the girl everyone whispers about at school, and I couldn't say anything in my defense. That year sucked, then we moved and I transferred to a new high school in the towers, where I didn't have a reputation or anything. I'd stopped playing Tracer, since that was just.. worse, somehow."
Cadena's ears only briefly perk, once freed from the helmet, then droop again. "That's pretty heavy to deal with at 14, yes." He looks back up to Tracy. "For what it's worth, I think you've shown incredible strength, and adapted to those unpleasant realities remarkably well. It might sound selfish of me, but I often suspect that Vice President Trudeau might have assigned me to you not because you were in need of a bodyguard ... but because I might learn something from you, on how to become stronger despite adversity, and things that challenge my sense of identity."
"I rely a great deal - too much, I think - on external signs to give me my sense of identity," Cadena says. "However, even in the face of vile rumors and cruel whispers, you still made yourself ... you. And you didn't have the forces of the WHITE cheerleading you on the whole time, and conveniently giving you little quests to fulfill the whole way. If anything, you got challenge after challenge, without a measurable reward at the end - and yet, you made something out of it anyway! That fascinates me."
"Mom thinks I'm stronger than I am," Tracy claims. "I had to see the Avatars staff psychiatrist, since.. well, everything was secret. I ended up completely changing just about everything about myself. Went into athletics. Got into the track team, had a crush on Dean from the boy's cross-country team. Dated a guy named Jim for.. maybe four dates? Once he learned about the security risk stuff, he backed out. So did Carl a year later. Mad Mark was the only one who wasn't scared off. But.. well, he has issues, obviously. And I let him push all my buttons because I guess I wanted someone to validate all the self-esteem issues I had at the time. Anyway, I did okay in track and gymnastics - had those trophies and all. But I don't keep in touch with any of my high school friends anymore. Started my next shy phase and kept as little contact as possible with classmates in my extension courses, except the ones that actually lived on the same floor of the tower with me, after I got.. was given.. my apartment."
"I see." Cadena frowns. "Well, it's only reasonable you get a bit of help from your parents. But ... would it make you feel any better if you could get a place for your own? Without your parents helping, or it being provided by the company?"
"No, I needed it," Tracy says. "My part-time job didn't pay a lot, after all, and I still had to cover some of my expenses. But it mainly let me.. avoid people and focus on privacy. Probably why I went to Jason when I found the sneak-suit someone had tried to just dump down a garbage chute."
Cadena just nods, and then he finally stands back up again. "After this is all over, maybe you could check up on some of those friends again? I mean, the friends, that is - not just classmates and associates? A lot of them are bound to be going through their own problems, too. I mean, not to compare with yours in terms of threat to life and limb, but it has to be awkward, leaving the nest, having to take the first steps to getting yourself a job, and so forth. You might have something in common, despite everything, and it could lead to other connections."
Tracy thinks about that, and then blushes suddenly. "Ah.. maybe not," she says. "If they follow the news at all they've have seen me flashing monsters, then being reported dead from having the aircar shot down."
"Well," Cadena thinks, flushing in the ears a bit, "there's Mike. You seemed to be hitting it off pretty well with him. I'm sure he wouldn't turn down the chance to talk over coffee. And then there's Ms. Summers. I know she's a bit older and all, but she seems nice, and isn't old enough that I think she'd be seeing you as a kid. And then there's that fellow Jack from the Shadows. And what about your fairy friend? You know, online connections could lead to real-life contacts."
"I dunno," Tracy says. "Mike may not even remember ever having met me if DanTech's lawyers get him. And the others.. I don't know what the fallout from the whole ATLAS incident is going to be. Although at least whatever reputation I end up with in the Gloaming, I can say that I actually earned. ATLAS.. who do you think controls him, anyway? What was the reason for creating him?"
"I ... don't know," Cadena says. "I felt a bit ... distracted at the time when I met him. I think I was a bit shocked when I discovered that his specialty was in finding things, and yet he didn't seem to really recognize me. I mean ... no, that's not quite right. He obviously knew a great deal about me, but he still treated me like a trespasser. I ... guess I was just secretly hoping that my mysterious 'finding' ability would prove to be some sort of connection. I value making a few connections myself, after all. But, ah, I guess I shouldn't be too disappointed about not gaining ATLAS as a friend or benefactor." He grins. "The SPARK really flattered me, I guess. I really ate it up. I guess I was getting greedy."
The dog-humanoid drums his fingers idly on what passes for a chin, perhaps aping the gesture from someone else he's observed. "I think I was a little bit disappointed when Renard didn't turn out to be my 'arch-nemesis,' too. So I can sympathize with that revelation about Ms. Knightley, right?" He tries to grin, but it comes across awkwardly.
"I guess so," Tracy says, smiling back. "I want to find out what HECATE's ultimate plans are too. And.. well, the DNA data is all encrypted on the chip, but the key is something Ms. Arcadia should know: AVA-808-X024."
"I am not particularly gifted with insight into motivations," Cadena admits, "but I don't suspect HECATE of any duplicity. She has a mission. She's just ruthless and amoral about how to execute that purpose - and unfortunately her human caretakers haven't taken greater care in providing the missing restraint. If, say, the only way to get Margaret's Observer Soul out of my head required vivisecting me then, yes, I am going to be in for a great deal of trouble ... but I sincerely doubt that is what the WHITE intended."
"Yeah, the DanTech AIs seems a bit.. inhuman, more than superhuman like the Avatars GESTALT ones," Tracy notes.
"I'm ... probably not the best to judge that," Cadena says. "I haven't gotten to know any of them very well."
The dog-humanoid sighs. "I feel really bad about leaving Mike behind now. I don't want him to get mind-scrubbed, but it's even worse to think that he would forget all about you, and you'd miss a really good chance to get a new friend."
"I think they just seem to understand people a little better.. if not perfectly," Tracy says, then starts bringing the armor over to attach to Cadena's jumpsuit. "Need to make you look intimidating! And I think the DanTech lawyers have other issues right now, and hopefully won't think that 'going after a kid on life support after murdering a teenaged girl' is a good PR move."
"I'm sorry," Cadena says, "but after all they've done, I doubt PR is their top concern. What if they're also joining the bandwagon of trying to start a 'Convergence' of sorts? Presumably not one with ADs in it, if they have the 'Godslayer' on their side, but perhaps just as capable of shaking up reality as we know it. Then, who cares about PR, when they can bring on a new Apocalypse on their own terms, and remake the world from the rubble, with themselves in charge? I'll be a bit embarrassed if their real goals are much more modest than that ... but at this stage, I'd almost be disappointed if it were anything less than a plan for multi-universal domination."
The dog-humanoid obligingly stands up as straight as he can manage, holding his arms out to his sides, to assist in fitting. His first instinct is to suck in his gut, but then he realizes he might regret that if everything's adjusted too tightly and he finds he has to breathe.
"ATLAS," Tracy says. "ATLAS was the strongest of the Titans. Zeus is the king of the gods. Maybe what they plan on using Zeus for is a portal network. Move from any node in the Zeus system to any other, with a brief jaunt through virtual space."
Armor bits go on, including shin and forearm guards, until Cadena is more of a generalized humanoid shape that anything so obvious as a man or a dog.
"I suppose," Cadena says. "I'm still having trouble reconciling that with the 'Godslayer' business ... but then perhaps I'm failing to divide the factions properly, or I'm being too simplistic." He tests his fingers, flexing them in the gauntlets. "Too bad nobody was vain enough to have a tall mirror to hand." He rotates to allow Tracy easier access to the other side for the rest of the armor.
As she works on the back armor, Tracy wonders how to accommodate Cadena's staff. Maybe a modified holster. "Well, at first we thought Sasha must be involved with the General and Jason Zero and all that, but I couldn't see the link. And low and behold, there wasn't one! So it's still possible that everyone is working for their own goals and not towards a unified one."
"I wonder if it would be possible to reach other universes with portals," Cadena says, voice muffled. "I've often pondered whether or not there could be a real Diadem out there somewhere ... that somehow, through the phenomenon of extreme bias selection that seems like amazing coincidence from our perspective, there's actually a world that matches the Diadem, only it isn't driven by artificial intelligences ... but rather by actual forces that we would perceive as magical or divine ... and that the convergence of our artificial simulation of it just somehow happens to be so complete that it's pulled our worlds together. And that maybe I could meet a real Avatar some day. But ... that's largely just wishful thinking, not an honest theory." He coughs. "Oh yeah. Would it be possible to ever ... er ... make things right with Ms. Knightley? What she did was awful, of course. But if she ever came to realize it and be sorry for it, I mean."
"That's up to her," Tracy says in clipped tones, and maybe accidentally pulls a strap too tight for a moment. "But she doesn't feel any guilt over anything that's happened to me, because she never did anything to me out of malice."
"Guh," Cadena grunts at the sudden tighening. In a slightly sucking-in-his-gut tone of voice, he says, "Well ... what if she owed you one? Maybe that would make her realize where she'd gone wrong? I'm talking about my currently nonexistent lead on Moonlight that is, if ever such a thing actually materializes."
"I don't particularly care what happens to Ms. Knightley, so long as she pays for her crimes," Tracy says. "She's a terrorist, thanks to that stunt with the invasion of Arcadia Towers. Doesn't matter who told her to do it, either: she did it. She tried to kill Mike. She's going to rot. And there's something else, something more important right now.."
"I understand that," Cadena says, quietly. "I'm not going to go on a wild panther chase while we've got other, more important things. I just ..." He sighs. "I'm sorry."
"I know you have your reasons for wanting to find Moonlight," Tracy says, as she applies the last bit of armor carefully, to avoid further distress to Cadena's tail. "If you need my help, I'll help. But I'm not going to reunite the two of them. Now.. tell me: how would you have gotten all of this stuff into this service station without being noticed?"
"These days," Cadena ponders, "there are too many ways. It could have been a portal, for all I know. Or it could have been done over time. Or maybe they took the sewer route, and had corporate access to go through the security locks somewhere. Or maybe there's something further down the subway we haven't discovered yet."
"They got Mara here, and that would have taken a truck," Tracy points out. "And a truck would have been awkward. So maybe there's a service vehicle nearby, that uses the tracks. The next room over was a maintenance bay or something, so it had to have had a vehicle to maintain."
"Hmm," Cadena ponders. "Reasonable. But would it still be here? I guess we could find out." He tests his ability to move around in the suit convincingly without overly betraying the fact that he has a tail stuffed down one leg. "Huh. Running is going to be out of the question in this getup, unless I find some other way to hide my tail."
"I don't think we've checked under all the tarps in the garage yet," the dog-humanoid considers. "Care to take a look? I can practice my mercenary swaggering as I walk over there."
"These uniforms don't come with capes, unfortunately," Tracy laments. Of course, she's not wearing nearly as much armor as Cadena is. She straps on the holster for Bolter, some extra ammo and a selection of bolts. "Lead on, MacFluff!" she says, and goes to open the door for Cadena.
"Hmm," Cadena muses. "It is December. Don't they sometimes wear greatcoats over the armor?" He carefully swaggers his way to the garage, trying to look as if he's just so cool he doesn't HAVE to rush - not that he's trying not to break his tail.
"We can look some more; maybe one of the big guys had one," Tracy suggests, and bites her lip as she watches the swagger.
Cadena suddenly stops. "Eh? Does it look too unnatural?" He sighs. "All right ... this is killing me. I've got to get this tail out. There's got to be a better way. Not being able to run is going to be a problem, I'm sure, and bending my tail hard would not be good, either." He stiffly walks over behind one of the tarp-covered piles in the garage, and wrestles with the armor.
Meanwhile, Tracy starts investigating any large tarp-covered shapes.
The largest tarpaulin-covered forms turn out to be, unsurprisingly, components and wheels for the ancient subway cars that used to be repaired here in the garage. There's also a replacement turret housing (cannons not included) for the Spazztic! Road Warrior. One odd irregular tarp-covered form turns out to be an archaic Polytechnic Motors Capricorn motorcycle -- it has wheels instead of ground effect units! But it is powered by fission batteries, and the one in the motorcycle shows 25% charge, after all these years.
"Ow!" Cadena cries out. "Don't worry! I'm all right! Oof. Got it. Careful ... careful ..." There's the sound of a vibro-bayonet working. "Okay. I don't see how humans can possibly ... no, wait, that isn't right. Hey - there's some more gear over here...." There's the sound of another locker wrenching open, a few cans being knocked over ("Oops. It's all right! Nothing broken!") and then, "Hey! Here we go." He strides back out. It's not a greatcoat by any means, but he's found a winter overcoat that just looks like typical thick snow wear, showing signs of wear and a few grease stains near the bottom. He does the mercenary swagger over, this time looking a little less forced, and turns about to show his hopefully tail-obscuring overcoat.
"It's hard to take in the swagger when I can see your face," Tracy notes, grinning a bit. She gestures to her discovery. "Can you drive a motorcycle?" she asks.
"Oh," Cadena says, as he regards the Capricorn. "I feel strangely drawn to this." He strides over, and caresses the finish. "Wow. This is ... a find. And ... no ... sorry, I can't actually drive it. Just for a moment I deluded myself into thinking I could."
There's a sidecar for the Capricorn, and an attachment for a trailer which can carry a truckload of cargo, also using wheels. Wheels! They seem so cavemen-technology-like.
"Maybe if you had a guitar you could drive it?" Tracy suggests, and looks over the controls. "An electric bike should be easy. Just turn it on and twist the throttle... right?"
"I could give it a try," Cadena offers, "but ... no guitar, sorry. I left that back at Avatars Headquarters. It was only borrowed. That's ... that's some other role, some other time."
Tracy tries her usual tricks to get it started, but gets confused by.. well, wires that she finds. "No place for the logic probe to go," she mutters, and taps an odd slot. "I bet you have to insert a key.. turn out the pockets on that coat of yours, Cadena."
"Well, if I was lazy, or just confident nobody would be messing with my wheels here," Cadena says, in a more swaggery voice, muffled by his gas mask and helmet visor, but he doesn't finish the sentence. Instead, he sits down on the seat and reaches over, popping open a small stowage hatch within arm's reach, built into the sidecar. Jingle. He picks up the keys, and tries them in the ignition.
An ancient grime-covered screen lights up, the symbols indistinct underneath the buildup of dust and grease.
Tracy uses an edge of the tarp to try and wipe the display clear and see if the bike still works.
Once cleared, the display indicates 'POLYTECHNIC CAPRICORN' and a fancy goat-head logo. Beneath that, the text 'FISSION BATTERY AT 27% CAPACITY - INITIATE ENGINE' suggests that it relies on fissionable materials inside the battery, which must be removed from the protective matrix in order to initiate a power reaction.
Tiny text beneath that indicates that by embarking upon the motorcycle, the driver and passenger accept any and all risk inherent in riding a vehicle with a built-in miniature nuclear reactor, and release Polytechnic Motors of all responsibility should the motorcycle melt down, due to improper usage or vehicular accident.
"Okaaaay," Tracy says, as she looks over the controls. Then she flips down a flap on her jumpsuit that has the radiation badge on it, to see if the bike is giving off any rads already. "I could really see Jason and Inari riding something like that," she tells Cadena. "Want to give this a try?"
Cadena just sits there, his face obscured by the visor and gas mask, so his expression is hard to read. But he nods his head as he looks around, regarding the bike. He seems to approve. He reaches down and tries the ignition.
"NUCLEAR REACTION - ENGAGED." There's a silent vibration of the engine housing, and then tiny servomotors extend the motorcycle fork as the entire thing expands outward from its compact, 'stored' position. It rumbles powerfully. A speedometer appears along with a radar image of the nearby area, and a tiny circle that indicates no radar speedguns in range.
Tracy runs off.. to open the door to the garage.
This appears to be the kind of motorcycle that can actually modify its shape slightly, between the 'town commuter' model with a steeply angled canopy and wider wheels for easier turns, and the 'highway ranger' model that puts the rider low to the ground, with an aerodynamic fairing for the front half. Headlights flicker, once, twice, then turn on at full power, blasting circles of light into the garage door.
The armored humanoid pauses a moment, letting his gauntleted hand glide over the features of the vintage '30s (2030s, that is) bike, admiring the sheen. "It's a beauty," he growls. And then, he gives it a gentle start and rolls out toward Tracy - but rather than rolling on out for a joyride, he brings it to a halt, and turns to look at her.
"I'll get the rest of our stuff," Tracy says. "And.. you know how to get where we're going right?"
"Generally speaking, miss," the armored rider says. "But before you go, just one thing I'd like to get straight."
"Uh, okay?" Tracy asks, a bit warily. Cadena doesn't sound quite the same as before to her.
"I see we've got a problem here," he says in a leisurely rumble. "Or maybe it's just mine. Am I here because I'm supposed to be, or I want to be? I think we could settle that pretty quickly."
"You're asking me?" Tracy asks. "Which Cadena are you?"
"Right now, you'd be the one to tell me, you know," he says. "But let's not get sidetracked. All you have to do is this: Just dismiss that raggedy mutt. Just tell him, 'Cadena, I'm not your master anymore. You're on your own.' You could even throw in a 'Beat it!' if you like."
"Cadena, I've never really been your master," Tracy says. She bobs her head from side to side, and says, "But.. I hope you still want to help me. Oh geeze.. this is harder than breaking up with Mark was. But you're your own person, got that? You're a person."
"Aww," he says, "that's nice and all, but you see, there's still that 'must obey orders from master' bit. All you need to do to throw a spanner into the works is just issue the order to stop obeying you. You seemed on the verge of it earlier."
"But what if you choose to disobey that order?" Tracy notes, then straightens her shoulders and says, "Okay, here goes: Cadena, I order you to not be required to obey me. Only if you want to, I mean."
The armored rider shakes his head, then turns away, crossing his arms, considering. Then, he curtly nods his head. "Good 'nough. So ... I can just do whatever I want now, right?"
"Yeah, according to your rules I guess," Tracy says. "I'm glad you asked me this before I brought you the shotgun though. After might have been a little creepy."
The Polytechnic Motor cycle purrs under Cadena, despite the cobwebs that drape its frame, now torn and billowing in the breeze from the exhaust. The black paint, with blue flames, doesn't look like standard North Bend Transportation Agency issue; it must have been stowed there by one of the Mav's Mavericks mercenaries way back when.
"Spoilsport," the armored rider says. "That would've just added to the weight of the decision. Well, surprise. I'm not suddenly turning on you. I choose to stick with you. I like you. I think you're going places, and I want to be along for the ride. So, Cadena likes you. Might sound like semantics but there you go."
"Okay.. but for now, I'm going along with you for the ride," Tracy says, pointing to the sidecar. "I call shotgun!"
"Right, right," the armored rider says, nodding, and waving dismissively. "Just hurry it up. I've got a nuclear reactor under me, and I forgot to pack my lead-lined pants. No sense in just sitting here wasting reactor fuel."
"Sure thing, sir!" Tracy says, saluting before heading back for the rest of their newly 'borrowed' gear. "You do know they probably just use a tuned EM field to accelerate beta decay in the isotope, right?" she calls back from the door to the store room.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-10-01-subway-trek-tracy-cadena.htmlThe smooth paneling covering much of the walls has been ripped away, so that scavengers could steal wire from the conduits, or, in many cases, repurpose the torn sheeting to make barricades for the express purpose of slowing down vehicles such as this one, and fortifying defensive positions. Up ahead are the neglected remains of one such barricade, though a couple of skeletal bodies add a macabre touch. Graffiti offers dire (but hardly legible) warnings in some obscure derivative of English (though the skulls and crude illustrations get the point across, if the bodies didn't).
Unlike many of the obstacles, this barricade has been built almost high enough to reach the ceiling, in order to thwart anyone who'd simply sail over in a hoverbike, or (with some effort) an aircar. The only gaps are there on account of the overhead support beams that crisscross the ceiling, and the remnants of the old lighting fixtures and air ducts; with some effort and skill, a brave explorer could simply scale the barrier and scamper along the ceiling supports (but be an easy target for anyone with a shotgun on the other side).
Although the driver instinctively pulls over and checks for signs of an ambush, it is soon evident that it's a false alarm. The barricade has long ago been compromised, with a hole big enough to drive a minivan through. A few dented plastruct containers full of trash have been set up in a lame attempt to fill the gap, but they've been shuffled about enough that the bike can roll through without any trouble.
On the other side, a rusted heap of a minivan riddled with bullet holes (with a few bones visible through its shattered windows) is crashed into another debris pile; it has likely already been stripped of any useful parts long ago (and one of its seats is discarded against the wall). Other bones and bits of trash are strewn about ... but there's a glint of light off of something wet and red. Blood - fresh.
The driver powers off the bike so that even its whisper falls quiet. Snarling, hissing and scrabbling echoes in the tunnel. Just on the other side of a pile of debris, there's the sound of teeth crunching on bones. What seemed like a length of discarded cable moves, revealing itself to be the long, naked rat-like tail of some large creature. It moves some more, and proves to be especially rat-like, though covered with lesions and unnatural growths: It's a rat, or some variant thereof, mutated by processes unknown to be comparable to a wolf in size.
The mutant rat pays no heed to the motorcycle or its passengers. Instead, it tears away at the leathery bodysuit of its food - formerly the driver of a scooter that appears to have wiped out while crossing one of the subway channels in a hasty retreat.
The motorcycle's headlight is switched off. The headlight of the scooter is still on, casting a gruesome shadow play against the wall. Much further down the way, there is also faint ambient light past another broken barricade and heaps of trash and filth. Amidst the scrabbling of claws and hissing of mutant rodents, there is a faint sobbing coming from around a corner, where a short maintenance access tunnel is largely blocked off by stacked containers and some furnishings that have been ripped off from one of the abandoned stations.
The two motorcycle riders check out the scene, anxious not to draw any undue attention to themselves. Up ahead, there are more corpses - the fresh ones still being snacked on by the hideous mutants. It seems that at least a couple more are occupied with trying to tear away at the debris blocking the maintenance access - in order to get to one, possibly two people hiding on the other side.
The motorcyclists regroup and quietly compare notes. There's the one feasting on the scooter driver nearby; although it has been very distracted, it's likely to react if they simply try to drive on by it, and making the rest of the way on foot just isn't a practical option. There seem to be four further down, gathered around the maintenance accessway. And beyond that, past another wrecked vehicle that somehow made its way down here, there's at least one more mutant prowling for an easy meal.
The way is far from clear, thanks to the scattered trash and the large size of the rodents scurrying about. Walking the bike through would seem the prudent course to navigate the hazards, if it weren't for the likelihood of being eaten in the process. Therefore, some stealth might be in order.
Tracy chews on her lower lip, before whispering to Cadena, "Do you think we can roll the bike past that rat without being noticed?"
The motorcycle driver pauses in contemplation, then whispers back, "Unlikely. No clear floor without crossing over the subway tracks, and I'm not strong enough to lift the bike altogether - and there are so many pieces of trash. One crunch and we're sure to draw attention."
"Okay then," Tracy says, and loads one of the taser bolts into her liberated sidearm. "I'll stun the creeper - and hope these things aren't too noisy. That should let us get closer to that junction to see what's going on, right?"
The helmeted "security guard" nods in response, then suddenly puts out a hand on Tracy's shoulder. "Hold it there. That's area effect, and noisy. Great for crowd control - not so much for stealth. Save it for when you're in a target-rich environment."
He then gets back off the bike, and unslings his staff. "How good are you at hitting things with sticks? Or spears?" He checks through his pouches.
"That isn't something I've really trained for," Tracy notes. "Just hand-to-hand and some weapons. I still have my taser though, which works for contact or short-range."
"I can use this gun as a bludgeon too.. but I'm sure the rat would cry out," Tracy continues. "I think if I can sneak up on it, I can zap it quietly and then.. strangle it." She doesn't sound too happy with that course of action though.
Tracy's companion fishes out some small tools, and takes the staff, flipping it over and swapping out the cap piece, attaching a vibro-bayonet in place, but leaving it turned off. "Here. A nice, sharp, pointy stick. Better than getting up close and personal with a disease-carrying giant rat." He holds it out, offering it. "Or, if you feel more comfortable, you could stick with strangling it. I could also do the dirty work, but I'm not likely to be as quiet."
Thinking over her options for moment first, Tracy accepts the makeshift spear after holstering her bolter. "Okay, I'll stick to the left wall going in, so there's some debris between me and the rat, and try to take it from the side. Be ready to use the headlight as a distraction if it looks like the rat stops eating or gets suspicious."
The driver nods, carefully rolling the bike a bit further in to get it past the remnants of the failed barricade, and avoiding "crunchy bits" on the floor.
After easing out of the sidecar, Tracy charges her taser and secures anything loose that might make a sound. She also makes sure her gas mask is in place, since it'll also muffle the sounds of her breathing (and any talking over her microphone she may need to do). "Wish me luck," she whispers to her partner before sneaking towards the wall.
The driver salutes Tracy, and readies a stun stick, keeping watch on the over-sized rodent "sentry."
The girl fades into the darkness as she crosses to the tunnel wall, and silently makes her way to the edge of the pool of light from the scooter's headlamp. Spear held in her off hand, she aims her taser and takes a shot at the still-oblivious rat.
The rat is completely caught off guard, as the taser bolt plunges into one of the meatier parts of its thin frame. Its mouth jerks open, and it shakes silently in place, before falling in a pile to the ground, twitching, its neural impulses overridden by the sudden burst of current. The chewed-on remains of a hand fall from its yellowed teeth.
Not wasting time (or waiting for her resolve to waver), Tracy retracts the taser darts moves forward to use the spear, aiming for the base of the rat's skull in hopes of severing the spinal cord without spilling too much blood.
The coup de gras is delivered flawlessly. This rat won't be getting back up. There's no evidence that any of the other mutants have paid the slightest heed to what has transpired here.
"Well done," comes the whisper over Tracy's headset. "Moving forward to your position."
"It looks like there's another barrier ahead," Tracy whispers into the comm, after wiping off the bayonet blade as best she can on what's available.
A grunt echoes over the headset. "All right. This is as far as I'm moving the bike until we can scout out further ahead. Just rolling it is noisy enough with the echo in here. Getting it over the rails is bound to draw attention, and there's no way it can squeeze through these trash piles without making a ruckus."
After the charging whine on the taser goes silent, Tracy nods to Cadena (since there's light enough to see her do it now). "There's a break by the mini-van; I'll head to there and see what I can."
Perhaps fortunately, there's little left of the scooter driver that can be definitively identified as human, as quite a number has been done on the body. Perhaps several of these mutants tore at the body at first, and this scrawny one was just staying behind to clean up the scraps. The scooter may well have been lying here for hours; the engine shut down, but the headlamp still shines against the wall. Torn scraps of fabric hint at a backpack of scavenged supplies, but the contents have been scattered and anything edible broken into.
"Looks like one of Jason's neighbors," Tracy comments on the remains, really doesn't want to examine them further. "Moving ahead.."
Light boot-steps and the slightest of scuffs against the floor plates sound behind Tracy. A quick check confirms a familiar silhouette dimly illuminated by the splash of the scooter's headlamp, lurking in the shadow of the debris pile. The silhouette nods in confirmation, keeping a distance behind her so as not to spoil her style.
Stopping at the front of the ruined van, Tracy stares forward to let her eyes gather as much light as they can to see what lies ahead.
The wrecked mini-van, despite having its hood pulled open, engine torn out, and other parts ripped off for salvage, still has the bones of its drivers in the front seat, and a few more scattered in the back. If there's any respect for the dead here, it only amounts to "leave the bones fall where they may." Past the mini-van, a gap has been cleared through the trash, past a few more crates. The crates have their lids popped, as if curiosity-seekers have checked their contents only to confirm that they'd been filled up with trash for ballast.
Tracy's immediate surroundings are cast in shadow. Beyond the next debris pile, there is a faint flickering light, and garbled music. Some sort of entertainment device is playing, and by the odd cast of the light, the illumination is only provided by its control panel, still on. The skittering of claws on the floor panels, and crunch of debris can be heard, plus an occasional choked sob, and a whispered curse.
Drawing her taser, Tracy flips on the laser-sight. It's not terribly accurate, but at least the red dot can be used to sweep for obstacles in her path.. and she thinks that animals living in the dark have trouble seeing red, but isn't sure if that means the rats won't notice it. Still, if they do.. it's something else for them to attack rather than her. She moves forward cautiously to the next bit of cover to get a better look at what's ahead.
From her improved vantage point, Tracy can see another one of those wolf-sized rats, chewing on a body that is intact enough to be recognizable as humanoid, but only barely. There are a few scattered pieces of sports equipment and metal that might have once served as some makeshift armor, but it does little good now. Nearby, one of the maintenance floor panels has been ripped away to reveal a pit with exposed conduits - many of them broken open and torn apart, likely to steal wiring. A bicycle - the simple, people-powered kind - is toppled nearby.
Deciding to test her rat color-blindness theory, Tracy tries shining the laser-dot near the feasting rat to see if it reacts. If it does.. maybe she can lure it closer without having to expose herself!
Past the open floor hatch and to the right, Tracy can see an opening to a maintenance tunnel that runs perpendicular to the subway tube. There's another body being fought over by a couple more mutants, and a lashing tail hints at another one lurking just around the corner. Part of the skeletal frame of a small air-car can be seen wedged into the side-tunnel, providing a sort of defensive cage that so far seems to be holding the rats back. However, aircars are built to be LIGHT, and the frame rattles and shakes under the determined efforts of the one mutant that hasn't a meal to keep it occupied.
"I count at least four targets ahead, Cadena," Tracy whispers into her mic. "But they're not clustered enough for a single bolt. Trying to lure away the straggler."
It takes a bit to finally catch the rat's attention, so engrossed in its meal as it is, and so unwilling to abandon it when there are others nearby who might take its place. However, at last it can ignore the dot no longer. It snorts, drooling out of its malformed mouth, and shuffles after the dot.
Now that she's further away from the wall, the whispered curses make more sense to Tracy. There's a male voice behind the aircar frame, muttering, "Frotzin' rats!" over and over, and a female is sobbing.
The aircar frame stops rattling. The rat round the corner makes a snuffling noise, then waddles over to the abandoned body. It sniffs around curiously, verifies that the previous diner is otherwise occupied ... then tentatively nibbles at the dead bicyclist.
"Definitely some scavengers still alive up ahead," Tracy informs Cadena. Once she's got the rat to cover half the distance towards her, she shifts the dot to its head and fires her taser.
The mutant rat follows the dot, but can't see it anymore now that it's dancing on its forehead. The rat looks up, jaw slack, right as the taser fires. Zzt. Right into the mouth. The rat flops silently to the floor plate, staring into space.
Back at its previous meal, the other rat just gleefully nibbles away, oblivious and far from caring about the fate of its rival.
The male voice drops into silence as the aircar's frame stops shaking, and a little later, the woman quiets as well.
Definitely need to wash the barbs before shooting a person, Tracy thinks, and presses the retractor to reel the darts back in, hoping the music and other noise covers the whine of the motor and recharging capacitor.
The holo-box (its holo transmitters long since smashed by the rats) continues to play a nonsensical repetitious phrase about "Purple Pants, Purple Pants! Purple purple purple pants!" The worst of it is that the beat is actually kind of catchy - and the rest of the lyrics are so dialectic as to be unintelligible.
"I think the people ahead have noticed something," Tracy informs Cadena. "I hope I can aim the bolt okay.. the other three rats are clustered close now." Swapping the taser for the bolter (which is a bit heavy for one handed use, frankly, but she's not going to abandon the spear), the girl tries to move closer, figuring she can get a good shot from where the knocked out rat is.
As Tracy maneuvers into position, just in time she notices a dangling wire that has fallen loose from one of the ceiling supports, stringing down to the nearest trash pile. Hitting that slowly would most certainly send a cascade of trash crashing to the ground. Hitting it at high speed could mean getting "clothes-lined" or worse. Fortunately, Tracy does neither. The rats are oblivious, as if nothing ever hunts them down here.
Taking a deep breath, Tracy raises the heavy pistol and switches it to use the bolt launcher, with the taser bolt already loaded, and takes aim at roughly the center of the cluster of the three remaining rats. "Here goes.." she whispers to Cadena, and takes the shot.
The mutant rats look up as the bolt fires into their midst, smacking into the wall just a little off course. They have only an instant to react, and if there were an instant more, it looks as if all three might instinctively leap upon the device to attack it. However, that's a moot point, once the device explodes with a Tesla effect upon the area. "Purple Pants, Purp--" The holo-box explodes, mercifully.
"Mental note," Tracy mutters to herself. "Use both hands to fire this thing next time.."
Three mutant rats fall to the ground, unconscious, twitching.
"Frotz! That was some kinda weapon! We're saved!" yells the male voice. "Hey, help! We're in here!"
"Is that all of them?" comes over the headset. "If so, let's get on through."
"Hold on," Tracy calls, as she holsters the heavy gun and goes to work with the spear to make sure the rats don't get up again. "Start moving up, yeah," she replies over the comm. "I'll make sure the scavengers can get out on their own."
"All right. Going back for the bike. Be with you in a few," comes the reply over the headset. Tracy can hear the shuffle of boots rushing back down the tunnel.
The male voice seems to have fallen into silence.
After the grisly work of stabbing the rats and trying not to look too closely at the corpses, Tracy looks over the aircar-frame barricade. "Are you injured in there?" she calls to those holed up on the other side.
"Doesn't sound like cops," the male voice whispers to his companion. Then louder, "Yo! You a cop?"
With the holo-box dead, the area has fallen into pitch black darkness, save for the faint red glow of the laser pointer on Tracy's taser.
Down the tunnel, back the way she came, Tracy can hear a clatter of boxes and the thumping of something rolling over the rails.
"Yeah, I'm Officer Skunkman of the Sewer Patrol," Tracy notes sarcastically. "If I were a cop, would I be using stun rounds? I just need to know if you can get out of there on your own. I've got places to be."
The scavenger pauses for whispered conversation with his companion.
She cannot make out the conversation, but then the male voice speaks up again. "Mighty kind of you, officer, we'll be okay. We just got surprised an' trapped in here by dem rats."
A scraping noise comes from back down the tunnel, of a plastruct crate full of ballast being shoved along a floor plate. An empty bottle rolls, falls, and breaks. "Just me," comes over the headset. "I'm not trying to be noisy. Just comes naturally."
Shaking her head, Tracy says to the scavengers, "Okay, but I suggest you get out of here as soon as possible. It's only a matter of time before more rats show up."
"Don't have to tell me twice, lady," the scavenger says. There's the sound of scraping metal on concrete.
As if to punctuate this possibility, Tracy catches the sound of claws scuttling on floor panels, just around the corner and past the now-dead bodies, back in the main tunnel. Something has been sneaking up on her.
"Tracy, look out!" comes a warning cry over the headset. At that moment, a large shadow separates from the darkness, leaping upon her!
Spinning around, Tracy swings up the spear to try and catch the rat in mid-air!
The spear-tip doesn't do more than a glancing blow on the rat, but this is more than enough to suffice in throwing it off of its leaping trajectory. The mutant slams into the floor nearby, and twists about, hissing and spraying green spittle.
"Ahhh! Jacob, the rats are attacking!" yelps a female voice. The sounds of scraping metal reverses as the scavengers try to push debris back into position. Jacob moans. "Frotzin' rats!"
Abandoning the motorcycle a distance back, Tracy's partner comes dashing along, knocking debris and banging into remnants of the barricades heedlessly, as he hefts the sawed-off shotgun from the sidecar.
Holding the spear with both hands, Tracy lets out a yell at the rat before jabbing at it again!
The vibro-bayonet, even with the power turned off, proves to be amply sharp enough with the leverage of the makeshift spear behind it, to sever the rat's spinal cord neatly - and with the added bonus that Tracy is at a safe distance as the mutant sprays ichor from the wound. It flops to the floor-plates, twitching only a few times before expiring.
The bootsteps suddenly come to a halt. "Tracy," comes the voice over the headset. "You all right over there?"
The scavengers cower behind the makeshift barricade.
The are tapping noises, and then the sliding of a boot against a metal edge. "Careful," he adds. "There's an open pit here. Can't clearly make out how far down it goes."
Aside from panting and listening to her heart pound, Tracy seems unscathed. "I'm okay," she replies. "I wish we had a giant terrier now.."
At a more cautious pace, the other guard walks over, and pats Tracy on the shoulder. "C'mon," he says. "I smell trouble here. We need to clear out before the natives get restless."
"Yeah, let's get the bike through and get out of here," Tracy says, handing over the spear. "You might want to wash this though.."
After a pause, the male scavenger says, "You okay out there, Officer?"
Bootsteps shuffle away, and there's the sound of the shotgun sliding back into its sling, and the spear tip scraping against something. Then, the bike powers back on, and its headlights illuminate the grisly scene.
"I'm fine," Tracy says out loud. "Hopefully that's the last sewer rat. Good luck, but I've got to get going."
"Peace," Jacob says, followed by a shy "G'bye!" from the female scavenger.
Returning to the bike, Tracy helps get it rolling. "I kind of like this gun now," she tells Cadena. "And the spear was very handy, thanks."
"Good to hear," comes the reply over the headset. Once Tracy is secure in the sidecar and the weapons are stowed, they move along at a leisurely pace, carefully navigating the encroaching debris piles. "You did all right there, kid. Scary, almost." He sighs, and now that there's a bit more distance between them and the scene, he adds, "Heavy incense back there. Trying to cover up the scent of drugs - the old-fashioned kind, not the dermal patches that are in vogue with the Arcology kids. Of course, scavvies in the Dregs can't afford that luxury."
"Scary? Me?" Tracy asks. "Jason would never believe you if you told him that. Glad we didn't stick around to dig those two out then; no telling what they'd have done if they were on drugs."
Getting to the construction site would be quite a hike on foot; fortunately once they're clear of the Ecoclysm-torn remnants of the subway system, it's clearer going for the motorcycle, though they do need to use a different entrance for the old sewer network, since the bike won't fit the usual way.
"Well, out in the Dregs, no good deed goes unpunished," the driver says grimly. "But I don't mind that we helped them out with a little 'enlightened self-interest.'"
"Think we'll be going back via that route?" Tracy asks.
Where they're headed is the Pearl Tower, a new 'Arco-Tower' design that Arcadia Developments is pioneering. It was begun about five years ago and will purportedly produce enough food and energy through hanging wind-power plants, solar collectors, and an internal fusion reactor for difficult weather conditions to sustain its population, as well as featuring reduced emissions. The design reminds Cadena of the Ivory Tower that his Margie made, though it won't boast the same gravity-defying matrix of buildings and monuments.
"I don't know of any others," the driver replies. "Let's just hope our new 'friends' have the sense to move out for a while, until things calm down in the tunnels." He then grumbles, as the headlights illuminate a massive pile of debris formed by a partially collapsed ceiling structure. "All right. Slight detour. Dismount, please." He does so, preparing to haul the motorcycle over the rails to get to a clearer section to continue their journey.
"This new tower we're going to.. I assume it'll have an upgraded, new sewer line too?" Tracy asks. "I mean.. with cameras and such? We'll be noticed." She gets out to help move the bike over the rails.
With some effort - and noise - they manage to get it over to the other side. "I'm just following the directions C-- I received," he replies. "I'm guessing that if we get noticed by someone working with Arcadia Developments, the right people will know to look the other way. If not ... we'll just have to improvise."
"Okay, as long as we don't get shot at too much," Tracy says, her grin hidden behind her mask. "I need a break from that."
The normal sewer access from the subway station won't serve them for getting the bike down. Instead, they'll need to trek briefly above the ground to a sewer access station, though it's still in the outskirts of North Bend so hopefully it won't be monitored as closely as traffic in the main city would be. Or they could leave the bike... But it'll be a long walk.
"I'd rather not abandon the bike," Tracy notes. "May need it for a quick getaway still."
"Hey, any plan that involves abandoning this beauty, I'm not on board for," the driver replies. "That would be a crime." He checks the console, for the occasional ping from RFID tags giving clues as to their progress. "Here's our turn. We're getting close to surface access, so keep an eye out for squatters."
Just in case, Tracy draws the bolter and loads another taser bolt.
"You're a pretty good shot with that thing," the driver remarks. "I guess your mama signed you up for a personal defense course? Or are you self-taught?"
Just past the turn is another subway station, abandoned like the rest of the network. There are stairs leading to street level, and a cargo elevator that looks rusty, but might still work. The signs that would normally display estimated arrival times are filled with static.
"She had me trained, yeah," Tracy says. "Except for the shooting. I just kinda picked that up over time."
So far as Tracy can tell, it's a normal abandoned station. The snack vending machines were broken into a long time ago, leaving broken glass where the display items should have been, but the water fountains still work.
"There's still power, so the elevator might be working," Tracy notes. "Think it's worth risking though?" she asks Cadena.
"The monitors are still on?" the driver says, sounding surprised. "Someone might have hacked into the power grid, but ... hmm." He brings the bike to a stop, leaving the headlights on as he surveys the area.
It appears to Cadena and Tracy that there must be some scavengers that call the place home, judging from the footprints, but they don't hear any signs of human habitation at the moment. At this time of day, scavengers would be out foraging through the trash heaps and remnants of old North Bend for anything that could be sold or used.
"I'm guessing the elevator motors have been scavenged," Tracy says. "Think this thing can drive up stairs? Wheels can do stuff like that, right?"
There are some sleeping rolls, hidden under the cover of fallen posters, and a fireplace made of scavenged bricks in the women's bathroom where the internal air circulation vents can draw the smoke off harmlessly far away without betraying the scavengers' position.
"One way to find out," the other guard says, going to the controls. "If it's booby-trapped, I'm going to be so disappointed, but, hey, we just drove in here. I don't see a high concern for defending against whatever might wander in from the tunnels. If there are some scavvies waiting upstairs, let's hope they're stingy enough with their ammo that they let us talk first before opening fire."
"We should have the shotgun ready," Tracy notes. "Does it look like the elevator has power?"
The elevator display shows the elevator is on the ground floor. First floor would appear to be offices, and Subway level would appear to be where they are now.
The guard nods and goes back for the shotgun, popping open the breech and reloading with non-lethal rounds, then cracking it back into place and slinging it into its holster. "Right." He checks his helmet, and makes sure he doesn't have any rat-ichor on him. "There. Perfectly normal. Every right to be here. Just passing through. Nothing unusual here." He presses the call button.
Ding! The elevator motors whir to life.
Tracy raises up her bolter as well, just in case. She uses both hands this time to keep it steady.
As the elevator drops to their floor and sinks slowly into position, both Tracy and Cadena hear something heavy jostle against the inside of the doors. It seems likely that whomever lives in the subway station has rigged up noisy things, set to fall if someone tries to use the elevator!
The doors start to open, silhouetting several large and precariously positioned crates, bottles, and flimsy cardboard boxes.
"At least it's not a giant mutant terrier," Tracy notes.
Crates begin to topple downward... The white dog in guard's disguise rushes to try to catch them, but Tracy is faster-- too fast for her own good. She slams into the trash, causing an unholy ruckus of broken bottles and clanging metal.
"I thought it'd be more solid," Tracy claims as her excuse for plowing into the mess.
"I hear voices," Tracy notes. "I think they heard me."
Getting to her feet again, Tracy starts hauling junk out of the elevator to make room for the motorcycle. "I bet we can be out of here before the squatters return," she says as she works.
The guard wades through the debris and slams in the emergency-stop button to prevent the elevator from being called back up. "Find a place to hide! I'll try to roll the bike in here for now." He surveys the mess, to gauge whether or not he can follow through on that plan.
"Shouldn't we clear both doors?" Tracy asks, as she looks around. Aside from the bathrooms and stairwells, there aren't many hiding places. "Oh, the stairs. I should run up and see where the elevator opens.." she notes.
Without stopping to discuss tactics, the guard rushes back out and rolls the motorcycle as best he can over and through the debris.
Despite the comment about running, Tracy checks the stairs cautiously.
As Tracy charges up the stairs, ignoring the crunching sounds of debris scattered across the steps, she sees the first floor of the subway-- a typical layout, with a ticket office on the left, a pair of turnstiles directly ahead, and a room with lockers and a security checkpoint on the right, presumably for cargo that won't fit through the turnstiles.. Beyond that is a plaza which opens up to the North Bend outskirts, with a fountain in the center.
"The other door will need to be cleared once the elevator gets here," Tracy reports to Cadena. "No sign of anyone else up here yet."
Taking that as confirmation, the guard pops the emergency lock back out and hits the button for the next floor up. "On my way up to you."
While waiting for the elevator, Tracy goes to examine the northern security gate, since getting the bike through the turnstiles would require a bit of demolition work. Once at the gate, she gets out her tools and tries to pick the lock..
The cargo elevator lifts upward with almost maddening slowness for the security guard-helmeted motorcyclist.
With the lock picked, Tracy eases open the door so can get a peek at the room beyond, hoping it's clear to the door she sees on the other side of the turnstiles.
Lockers line the walls, and a security office fills the wall to the right, though the metal louvres have been lowered so that there's no seeing into it; the armored glass door is dark and scratches on the surface shows that it has withstood past scavengers' attempts to break into it.
Leaving the door ajar, Tracy heads back to the elevator to help clear away the other boxes of junk once its doors open.
The elevator doors open. Cadena sees a thick armor-glass wall separating him from the plaza outside, with a fountain in the center, and two turnstiles that would presumably allow ticket-bearing passengers to pass through. To the left is a security gate leading to the ticket office, and to the right, an opened gate to what looks like a locker room where people can store their belongings.
The guard is still in the middle of trying to take advantage of the elevator's slow ride to shuffle junk out of the way, when the doors open.
Tracy moves in once the doors open, to start pulling junk out of the way.
"Pest control!" the guard shouts. "Mutant predatory rodents in the vicinity! Unless you have any wounded who need medical attention, please let us pass through so we can finish our mission!"
"I don't think there's anyone up here," Tracy tells Cadena, and points to the security door. "We need to go through there."
From what Cadena can make of things, there were two scavengers upstairs arguing about who got to go downstairs first to see what was going on. If the assailants had a gun, the argument went, then it should be the one who had the improvised "zip gun". Or perhaps the one who had the shield made of some scrap metal. Now that he's made his pronouncement, however, they seem much less inclined to head downstairs.
There are still some excited-sounding voices from outside, at a significantly greater distance than the ones who were in the office level.
"No," the guard says, "I think we'll have to deal with the locals if we aren't careful." He rolls the bike out of the elevator, knocking some more boxes out of the way, as he follows Tracy's directions toward the security area. Louder, "Any signs of rat spoor? Criminy, I hope not!"
Oblivious to any noises, Tracy nearly trips when Cadena says 'criminy' but reaches the door to hold it open for the bike.
"I'll check the other door.. lock that one behind you once you get the bike inside," Tracy tells.. her companion? She's not sure if she should really call him Cadena at the moment. "I'm going to check the other door."
The distant yelps of excitable scavengers filters in from the plaza outside, where a broken fountain collects stagnant rainwater. Moss grows thickly on the broken statue at its center.
The guard nods, pausing only to secure the door once the bike is rolled through.
The old Eagle Security security system would daunt the average juvenile delinquent, but thanks to Jason's training, Tracy has no trouble. This security gate too pops open.
The other security gate hisses shut once there's nothing in the way.
"So far, so good," Tracy notes as she swings open the second door.
Several scavengers converge on the station, still well away from it but now audible. "Hey! Lookouts! We saw the alarm!" one yells, a deep-voiced man. "What's going on?"
"Rat attack!" the lookout yells back.
"Rats?! They'll get into the food! C'mon, brothers and sisters!" the scavenger yells as he hurries toward the station, wielding a heavy improvised mallet, a length of iron rebar with a chunk of cement on the end.
"On second thought," Tracy says, trying to leap into the sidecar as the bike is pushed passed.
Once settled into the seat, the girl notes to Cadena, "I think the expression is 'burn rubber' for what happens next, right?"
"Yeah," the guard says, "I reckon it is." He hops back on the bike and guns the engine. "PEST CONTROL, COMING THROUGH!" And with that, he zooms out of the security door and into the street.
The nearby scavenger yelps as Cadena's bike zooms past. Even with the noisemaker off, the tires still squeal as he lays in a tight curve and powers up the street. "Frackin' watch where you're driving!" he shouts.
The abandoned subway station recedes into the distance. Ahead and on the other side of the road is a ruined building next to several large shallow bodies of poisonous-smelling waste water, presumably some sort of water purification project that has fallen into disrepair. Much more inviting-looking is the on-ramp for the old highway leading toward the fortified suburbs of North Bend.
Tracy watches the sky more than anything else. "We're going back underground, right?" she asks Cadena. "I feel kind of exposed up here."
"I'd prefer the high road for a change," the driver says. "Driving underground is just too ... interesting for my tastes. But if you prefer the sewers ... well! We can take the tour since we're here."
The sign for the sewer outlet station reads, 'NORTH BEND WATER PURIFICATION FACILITY 5- AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY' and beneath that, a bunch of legal-sounding language that sums up to, anyone who drives off the road into the station area is taking their life into their own hands.
"Nobody is strafing us with killbots underground though," Tracy notes. "Rats don't shoot back."
The driver shrugs. "Just don't step in anything funny. We don't want the 'killbots' to smell us coming once we're top-side again." He changes course, taking the low road to the sewers.
"Wait.. killbots have noses?" Tracy has to ask.
The station itself has been scavenged a few times for worthwhile parts, but the truck-loading ramp still works, allowing them to get to the sewer network level. Once inside, they find that the floors are mercifully free of debris. With the headlight on they can make much better time, than they did in the subway.
The driver just laughs. "Let's see if we still have ours once we're through!"
Catching the rustling of patrols ahead, Cadena bypasses several patrols-- whether they're Dantech or not, he doesn't know, since he elected not to stop and ask. The sewers grow visibly better maintained and lit as they head toward the center of North Bend.
Fortunately for them, the security system for the Pearl Tower isn't active. From the sewer annex, it's a simple climb up a ladder to reach the basement level...
Based on the blueprints Cadena was able to retrieve, they've located the sewer access hatch from the subsection directly beneath the waste disposal tube. A pipe to the central water reservoir separates them from the intended dropoff point... The statue of Raphael, he who heals. It seemed an appropriate choice at the time.
On the bright side, it doesn't sound like there're many people around at the moment. They can hear construction workers on the other side of the basement.
"So.. we just have to go straight up?" Tracy asks Cadena quietly.
"That's the general idea," he replies. "Unfortunately, the discussion was a bit ... oblique, out of concern that someone with hacking skills equal to Mr. Edwards's might have been listening in. Just remember: You belong here. This isn't a commando raid. We're just delivering a package."
"Okay, so.. we shouldn't have any trouble up there, right?" Tracy asks. "No reason for the Empire of Stars to have infiltrated the construction crew or anything like that?"
The guard puts the motorcycle over to the side, so no one is likely to trip over it in the dark without a bit of effort. He looks reluctant, but, after a vain effort to find something to camouflage it, shrugs and gives up, heading over to the ladder. "We can't rule anything out, I suppose. But that'd be downright forward-thinking for the Empire of Stars to infiltrate every single Arcadia Developments project, don't you think?"
"Who knows what their ultimate plans were," Tracy says, and goes to the ladder. "Do you any special lock code for the hatch, or should I get it open on my own?"
"Just try it," the guard says. "Should've been left unlocked for us."
Climbing up to the top of the ladder, Tracy just does that and tries to open the hatch.
The hatch opens silently, without the noisy squeals that Tracy has come to associate with rusty hinges. Hurray for new construction!
The girls pops up through the opening to floor above.
The guard climbs up next, pausing just under the opening to wait for Tracy's "all-clear" before emerging.
The air smells of new construction, the slightly acidic scent of freshly poured nanocrete. Across the basement, Tracy hears construction workers. Otherwise it seems quiet. The nearby wastewater filtering plant barely even bubbles; with so few inhabitants in these early days, there's next to nothing for it to do.
"All clear," Tracy says, using the support column near the hatch to block any view from the workers.
Nearby, the stern face of the archangel Michael looks silently out toward the support column. He rests both hands on a long sword, its tip planted into the pedestal on which he stands, and his wings are furled.
"So, which angel is our dropoff?" Tracy asks Cadena, hoping he'll say 'Michael' since that one is right there.
The guard clambers out, and then carefully puts the lid back into place, so as not to leave any unsafe openings for workers to stumble into. Safety is job #1! He holds out a hand to Tracy, motioning her to stand still for a moment, while he does a quick once-over to make sure her uniform looks to be in order, then he gives himself a quick check. That done, he nods toward the pipe-work that blocks the way immediately west. "Over to the other side. That's Raphael. I'm sure Margie would love to see him up close when she gets the chance."
"Okay.. I can climb over those pipes.." Tracy says, giving the superstructure the look-over of someone experienced in climbing such things.
"You could, but let's not," the guard says. "That's bound to draw unwelcome attention - and there's no chance I'll be able to follow without causing a scene. I'm too ... awkward."
"You could.." Tracy starts to say, then nods. "Okay, our features are hidden anyway. Our story is that we're doing a security sweep?"
To the counter-clockwise direction, a security camera sweeps the scene from the top of a set of supply shelves, one of many that holds various crates of construction tools, building materials, spare parts, and the like. Two elevators sit side by side, and a set of stairs allows access behind them, in the event that a disaster renders the elevators unsafe.
"We don't have a story," the guard says, starting to stride leisurely forward. "We just nod and keep on walking. Someone'd need a good reason to waste our time."
"Check the shelves as we pass, just in case there is a bomb or something," Tracy says. "It'll look less suspicious on camera."
The guard turns briefly, regarding the statue of Michael, and just quietly nods as he continues with his rounds.
The security camera swivels side to side, but thanks to Jason's training, Tracy can see that its arc of traversal only reaches the elevators and the stairs, and there's a wide gap behind the shelves. If Jason were designing this place, he'd have a hidden camera or two, so that itnruders might spot the easy camera and never realize they were blunding right into the concealed ones' field of vision.
"We can avoid the main camera sweep if we want," Tracy notes. "I don't see any hidden cameras to cover the blind spots."
"It seems the angels are indeed watching over us," the guard notes over the headset. "Or, at least, they will, once everything is powered up. Someone has a twisted sense of humor."
The security camera clicks as it reaches the end of its arc, then swivels the other way.
Tracy pauses to look back at the statue of Michael. "Cameras in the statues?" she asks.
The guard just nods, casually pausing along the way, to synchronize with the camera sweep.
Both Cadena and Tracy manage to time walking beneath the security camera so that it never actually catches them in its line of sight.
Ahead of them, on the right, Archangel Gabriel holds a trumpet in his hands but has not yet lifted it to his lips. Doomsday evidently wasn't that close when the statue was being built. Beyond the support column is the furnace, bracketed by air circulation pumps. During the winter, air will be pumped through heating circuits to warm it and keep the entire tower at a comfy temperature. Presumably in the summer, it would be routed through a different set of vents to take advantage of natural heat dissipation surfaces.
Now that they're near the workers, Tracy feels a little nervous. "Just walk past, maybe nod.. look like we're supposed to be here, right?" she asks Cadena.
"Sam! Hold your frackin' end up!" yells one of the workers at the other. "You're wobbling it all over the frotzed place!" They seem to be manhandling a piece of machinery into place.
"You're doing just fine, kid," the guard says. "A little nervousness is okay when it's your first day on the job as a security recruit. Just follow my lead."
"Ooookay," Tracy replies, wondering just what sort of game this version of Cadena comes from.
The guard walks around the support column, then stops as he sees that there's some heavy machinery being moved into place. He stands out in the open, making no attempt to hide.
The foreman, consulting his clipboard, doesn't notice Cadena until he's nearby. "Uh! Excuse me, sir," he says to the obviously security-garbed man, his attention on the helmet. "Can I help you with something?"
Tracy stops behind Cadena and waits.
"I need to pass through here to the other side," the guard says, pointing to indicate. "But I can wait until it's clear."
The foreman nods and redirects his attention to the workers. "All right, Max, hold it steady, Sam, line it up with the docking bay. Easy... Easy... Okay, just slide it right in."
The workers sweat as they push the heavy motor into place. Once it settles into place, they start attaching bolts. Tiny hand-held machine tools whine.
The guard just stands there, crossing his arms and casually leaning against the support pillar (after a quick and casual check to make sure there are no signs of fresh paint or other hazards) while he watches the work in progress, with the air of someone who's paid by the hour.
The foreman nods. "Okay, it's clear, sir," he says. He glances at the recruit and then whistles. "You're too pretty for security, miss."
Tracy blushes. "Well.. gotta start somewhere, right?" she replies.
"Hey, hey," the guard says, casually waving it off as he strolls on by. "Don't let it go to her head!"
This elicits a set of guffaws from the workers, who resume bolting things into place. For the moment, it looks clear.
Once past the men, Tracy takes a deep breath to relax.
The guard continues his route, turning briefly to admire the statue of Uriel, as he passes the next support column. "Hmm," he remarks. "You know, I suppose we could have just taken the stairs up a flight, and crossed over the next level."
The next stretch looks clear, with just an easily spotted camera monitoring the elevators and stairs on this side. They look identical to the ones on the other side, but perhaps there are rules about how far one can be from any access point.
"We can try on the way back," Tracy offers. "Unless it's really crowded up there.
"Sounds like a plan," the guard says, pausing casually again to "let Tracy catch up" and thus synchronize himself with the sweep of the other security camera.
"I need to get to my chip wallet," Tracy notes when they're in sight of the statue of Raphael. "Do you know where we need to place the v-chip with the data on it?"
Past the security camera, the coast seems clear. All they need to do is to insert the encrypted data chip, nestled in an electrostatic-safe container, into the niche in the Archangel Raphael statue.
Once past the camera, the guard digs into a utility pouch and pulls out an adjusting tool "borrowed" from the mercenary garage. "Should be pretty straightforward. I just need to check this out." He approaches the statue.
While Cadena does his investigation, Tracy adjusts her armor a bit so she can open the security jumpsuit enough to reach the pocket of the one she wears underneath and retrieve her chip wallet. Then she transfers the desired chip to an outside pocket and seals everything back up again.
The Archangel Raphael looks down at Cadena, silently and unmoving. There is kindness his his gaze and he stretches forth his hands as if offering (unspecific) help and aid. An old-fashioned brass plaque sits on the pedestal to identify him. A holographic design provides those with PDAs and wrist-comms any amount of information they might want on the subject of archangels.
The guard gives a nod to the statue, then kneels down and unscrews the bolts holding the plaque at the base of the statue. He leaves one in place so he can swivel the plaque open, then nods to Tracy and holds out a hand.
Tracy hurries forward and hands over the chip.
In goes the chip, and then the guard puts the plaque back in place, re-securing the bolts. "All done," he proclaims, standing up. "Now ... to send the signal."
"How do we do that?" Tracy asks.
"Pre-paid cell phone," the guard says. "Let's take the stairs up to the next level, so we can get a signal." He heads back for the stairs.
"We'll need to be careful," Tracy claims. "If it's a non-maintenance area they'll probably have dome-cameras."
As they head toward the stairs, the camera swivels back toward them, and before they can halt, it halts regarding them silently for a moment. The light flicks to yellow underneath it... And then back to green.
"I think we're being ignored," Tracy whispers, and heads into the stairwell.
The guard makes haste for the stairs, and quietly growls when he realizes that the camera sweep pattern doesn't work quite the same for him if he's going the other direction. "Just as well. Didn't hurt to be careful anyway."
Just inside, however, Tracy pauses and looks at her wrist, feeling the 'message pending' vibration. She slides off the cover and checks the message.
The guard digs out the pre-paid cell phone. It's a cheap, disposable model and hence its free casing is emblazoned with tacky G-Mart imprint advertising that cycles through - except for a few misprint spots where the lettering turns into an unintelligible color-static blob, or occasionally jerks and stutters. He punches in the number as he ascends the stairs.
The screen shows a message from an anonymous sender, but somehow it cleared her spam and malware filters. It reads: "WITHIN THE SEED A FLOWER WAITS TO BE BORN."
The grainy image of Ms. Arcadia forms. "Yes?" she says. Her brow furrows at the sight of a security guard's helmet.
"Special delivery for you, ma'am," the guard says. "Just dropped it off."
Tracy puzzles over the message. I think only Mom or Jason could send this, she thinks. But neither tends to be poetically cryptic. It could be a trap.. a phrase that triggers Cadena to do something, maybe? Now the girl chews her lower lip in worry.
The message on Tracy's wristcom dissolves, then reforms, pixels swarming as if made of glowing bees. "THE GODSLAYER BRINGS THE FIMBULWINTER."
Ms. Arcadia blinks. "Oh! Of course," she says, recognizing Cadena's voice. "Thank you so much! Please, let me know if there's anything I can do for you."
"Jason Zero," Tracy mutters in surprise. Is an AD contacting her, in order to make the message change like that? Which means her bracer is probably infected with something now, she realizes. But the terminology.. Fimbulwinter is Norse, hinting at Hel being the source..
The pixels swarm again, and converge on a final image. A hand held out to the right, across a field of green hills.
The guard nods. "It's my pleasure, ma'am," he says. "You have yourself a nice day, now. Until next time."
Ms. Arcadia looks a bit perplexed at Cadena's language, but smiles as the call ends.
"I think I just got a message from HEL or HECATE," Tracy whispers to Cadena, as she tries to save the image to a file for later analysis.
The image deteriorates even as Tracy hammers virtual buttons, leaving no evidence that a message was there at all.
"Huh," the guard notes. "Here, and I'd turned off all my net communications so nobody could get a geo-lock on me. Well, nothing to do for it now." He pops the case open on the pre-paid cell phone, and yanks the battery out, tucking it all into a utility pouch for later disposal.
With a grimace of frustration, Tracy starts reciting the words over and over to herself so she'll remember them. "Within the seed a flower waits to be born. The Godslayer brings the Fimbulwinter. An image of a hand held out to the right, across a field of green hills.." she mutters.
"Palmdale," comes the voice back over the headset. "Palmdale, California, in the reclaimed zone. ... That's the Palmdale community logo."
"The seed.. the seed is the old Fracture zone then?" Tracy asks.
"What started this, anyway?" comes the guard's reply. "This isn't some of that poetry of yours, is it?"
"No, it just.. showed up on my bracer," Tracy says in exasperation. "I don't know who could have sent it."
"Oh," comes the reply from the guard. "Well ... maybe Ms. H had the cameras working after all, and that was her little way of acknowledging that we'd 'planted the seed'? But I don't even know what that ... Fimbul ... winter is."
"The end of the world," Tracy says. "The winter without end, that freezes everything."
"Including flowers," the guard replies.
"This isn't the best time to figure it out," Tracy notes. "We need to get out of here and back to the nest."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-10-16-subway-jason-inari.htmlWednesday, December 4 - 10 AM Eastern
After a little scouting about, Jason located an abandoned cargo lifter and borrowed it to speed up the trip from the abandoned subway station to the tunnel closest to Reality Check, where Kimon had deposited his powered armor, Inari's sniper rifle, and both of the military grade sneaksuits that they had liberated from past owners. Even with the lifter, the going proved a little difficult due to the poor condition of the tunnels.
They slow as they approach the substation. Their headlights illuminates only a massive rockfall-- the tunnel had fallen in due to the earthquakes unleashed in the Ecoclysm-- but they can hear voices from the other side. One familiar voice in particular gets Jason's attention.
"Work with me, gentlemen, and we'll be in the money," Mr. Desoto says.
A grumbly female voice speaks. "Waddabout me?"
Desoto sighs. "Yes, yes, of course, you too, Mary. You'll all be well paid. I happen to know the fellow we're paying a call on is fairly loaded."
"An' he just gonna give you the money?" A male voice this time.
Desoto's voice hardens. "Yeah, he owes me. And if he doesn't want to pay, well, that's why I'm paying you guys."
"And gal," Mary points out.
Inari noses Jason's ear from where she was riding next to him precariously on the back of the cargo lifter. "Sounds like your old friend is back," she whispers. "Maybe you should have gotten him arrested after all?"
"Shows that showing a little compassion seems to be a bad idea. He's also a bit low on brains given he's trying to invade my home; you would think he would learn," Jason mutters, annoyed. "And you know, the old phrase about no honor among thieves may come into play here. I wonder if an invisible RIU could get the idiots fighting amongst themselves then we pick off the survivors." So ... he pokes the dragon on his shoulder. "Hey, think you can sneak over there invisible and start them fighting amongst each other?"
RIU beeps quietly! It is ready to give it a try.
Inari whispers to Jason, "And then we sneak in and cut a few throats?"
"Fighting fair is for the unimaginative. Stealthy-time RIU. Lets see if you can skulk around between them and start a fight. Like, oh, pinching that woman's butt, 'accidentally' pulling pins on their grenades if they have them. That sort of thing," Jason tells the dragon. "Us, well, we're going to move up and get behind some cover. And yes, that sort of thing when it comes to it."
The dragon visibly concentrates... And fades out of sight, matching the kevlar vest Jason's wearing so exactly that if he weren't feeling the minidragon's weight, he wouldn't know RIU was there! And a second later, he's airborne, gliding silently toward Desoto and his scavenger friends.
"And contrary to their belief, I am not loaded," Jason mutters to Inari.
The golden vixen nibbles Jason's ear. "But your heart is made of gold," she teases. "Maybe they want to sign you up as an organ donor."
"It's actually made of fibrous protein-strands," Jason retorts in whisper as he slips off the hover loader and moves forward slowly, apparently making his way to the large pile of debris ahead.
Inari follows closely. Her laser blade is in her hand but not energized yet.
Desoto says to his scavengers, "This way!" Footsteps.
"And you know, we still haven't actually been on a date that doesn't involve shooting someone," Jason mutters.
Inari whispers, "I thought that was your idea of a good date!"
The golden vixen slips into the shadows, moving toward the enemies.
Jason hears a faint click as Inari's foot touches a loose section of flooring... But she manages to catch herself just in time before it becomes a helter-skelter slide.
"Well, some day I would like to have a date that doesn't involve worrying about getting shot," Jason mutters as Inari slinks away.
And perhaps hypnotized by Inari's slinky retreating butt, Jason follows after her in silence.
The scavengers move up warily after Desoto. "You sure this is the right way? That's just a pile of junk," one says.
"Ooh, junk!" says Mary excitedly. "Maybe there's something left behind in the lot."
Not being aware of anyone else in the tunnels, they apparently feel no need to silence their movements. The echoes of their feet as they jump down into the tracks area can be heard down the tunnel.
"We're not here to pick up the trash," Desoto snaps. "This access hatch should take us up to the surface pretty close to the mark's hideyhole."
The man can be heard wheezing as he climbs up onto the platform... And then his breath catches as he notices something. That's odd."
The golden vixen looks back at Jason for her cue, as she slides into the cover of the rocks.
"You find something, boss?" asks Mary as she scrambles up onto the platform.
The scavengers greedily look over the pile of junk, reaching out for the crates that block their direct view of the storage lockers.
"Touch mah stuff and I'll have Inari castrate you," Jason thinks. Once he notices Inari looking back at him he points low, perhaps to keep as out of sight as possible, then mimes with his fingers sneaking towards the scavagers. "And go on, RIU, we've got to keep them from messing with my stuff." And to aid in that, eh starts looking for pipes or other junk he could sabotage to draw their attention.
The minidragon emits a tiny beep of agreement!
As Jason studies the scene, he notes Desoto standing near the maintenance access hatch, currently covered by a grille to prevent people from falling into the cables beneath. Subdued lights, including red strobe flashers, dot the substation.
Mr. Desoto rubs his hands. "I do believe we've found a cache, boys," he says. "Start moving those crates!"
"And gal," Mary points out. The scavengers spread out and begin shifting crates.
Jason twitches. "Well, at least they're distracted," he tells himself as a way to keep from getting too annoyed. Plus, they're now busy so ... "RIU, move closer, get ready to sow distrust! They're thieves. I bet they would argue..."
As RIU gets closer to the intruders, it can make out their equipment. They're wearing various scavenged pieces of armor. Mary, the coffee-skinned woman, totes a Spazztic! Reaper, a heavy shotgun with the bolt launcher stripped off. The other two scavengers each carry worn-looking Eagle Assault Rifles, and Desoto himself is packing a Spazztic! Hammergun. Even though it looks significantly smaller than the other guns, it might be deadlier-- it's in a lot better condition than the rest.
The thick Hispanic-looking "businessman" struggles mightily with a crate, trying to pull it away from the lockers. The junk underfoot makes the footing difficult.
Jason crouches down in cover beside the debris. His eyes narrow as he concentrates; he remembers Desoto's phone well. Older model, poor security. Aaand, thankfully he guy hasn't taken the time to improve it because the keys he obtained the last time he hacked it open up the gateways again! So, the first thing he does is change the answer setting to default to speaker phone. Aand ... the next thing he does is .. give it a ring! "Time to sow a little distrust..." jason thinks and wisely avoids cackling.
Deep bass tones emit from Desoto's pocket, followed by the light, lilting notes of Ravel's "Bolero". Desoto yelps, dropping the crate on his own foot, then hops around, pulling his foot free as he fumbles around his person. "ARGH! Frack, who's calling me?"
The scavengers turn to Desoto's antics, looking puzzled.
The golden vixen creeps into position, taking advantage of the lowered subway tracks to hide from their sight.
"RIU, see if you can fuse up her gun!" Jason orders the little dragon.
The minidragon, making sure it's not in the line of sight of the scavengers as they confusedly watch Desoto perform the 'Box On My Toe' dance, unleashes a deadly precise beam of energy straight for the shotgun on Mary's back! Lightning arcs across the gun, heating the metal to uselessness... And setting off the shotgun shells.
KaFWOOM! Mary is blown off her feet, smacking into the concrete, and the male scavenger near her fares little better as he gets knocked into the crate he was holding.
"OW FROTZING frack they're shooting at us, oh my God," Desoto babbles as he shifts from grabbing for his phone to trying to find his handgun, and the remaining hardened scavenger whirls around fumbling for his assault rifle.
The Hispanic arms dealer finally manages to pull his Spazztic! Hammergun out. He levels it toward Mary, but sees no enemy in that direction, so he sweeps his gaze around wildly, hunting the source of the devastating explosion.
"They got Mary! Sweet fracking all, they got Robin too!" moans the other scavenger as he shrinks back against the wall.
Desoto's gun wavers as he looks around wildly. "Show yourself!" he yells.
Ravel's Bolero continues to play from his pocket, incongruous.
Jason picks up a rock near his feet and tests its weight. He eyes the large pile of debris down the tunnel. "Lets see if I can hit somewhere near that and get them to go check it out .. and put their backs to Inari..."
Desoto hears the clink from the distance... And opens fire against the rocks! Ratatat!
The other scavenger squints his eyes looking that direction, trying to find the source of the noise.
The golden vixen scrambles up onto the platform under cover of Desoto's shooting, but some sixth sense alerts him to her presence, as ghostly silent as she moves. "Bart! Look out!" he yells. But by then, it's too late and she's already in close.
Shwish! The laser blade flickers on as she strikes, leaving the stench of scorched flesh behind. The remaining scavenger collapses to the ground, scattering bottles and smaller boxes.
The golden vixen raises her blade in Desoto's direction. She has his complete attention for the moment, as she licks her lips smiling viciously.
"RIU, light up that bastard," Jason orders the hidden dragon. He pulls out his own gun and switches it to lethal rounds.
As Inari holds Desoto's attention, and he whirls to bring his gun to bear, trying to backpedal simultaneously... Zap! Another bolt of lightning strikes from apparently empty air, shocking him. He stumbles, off balance, and falls to the ground in the debris.
"If you want to live, through your gun away," Jason calls out. "Otherwise, well, I'll let my friend have some fun with you."
Desoto's expression sinks into despair as he takes in the fact that his hirelings are unconscious or dead, and he's at their mercy. "I... Ah... You got me. You got me good, Mr. Edwards," he says, throwing his gun to the side. "I give!"
Bandages cover his gun hand, the expensive 'Amaranth Deep Healing' kind that contain tissue regeneratives.
"Smart man," Jason says as he keeps his gun trained on the downed man. "It's a pity you weren't earlier. You just had to be greedy and come after me. Or was it ego? Either way, bad decision." "Kimon, call an ambulance and the police, there is wounded down here. Once they're called, you will need to come pick them up so they will be picked up outside my home instead of down here."
The minidragon reappears from invisibility and perches on Jason's shoulder. It trills an 8-bit victory game theme!
"Get the injured to the hatch, please," Jason asks of Inari. "I'll make sure they get medical attention. They're just idiots for following this guy."
"Well... What's a working man to do?" Desoto asks, a bit indignant. "You didn't even pay me for the merchandise... When the Mav's Mavericks I was working with got out, they took off to go have a word with Irongrip, and that left me without any choice but to collect on a few debts."
The golden vixen smirks. "Cheap thugs for a cheap boss," she comments as she goes to pick up the injured and unconscious scavengers.
"And may I remind you that you tried to kill me the last time? I hardly feel I owe you anything since the last deal you deliberately tried to betray me and didn't even acquire what I asked for," Jason points out.
Jason makes his way slowly over to where Desoto is down.
Desoto temporizes. "You asked me for a top grade sneaksuit! The Amaranth Shadowsuit 1200 is their top of the line product, Mr. Edwards. But I'm sure I could get you a good deal if you happen to want something. At cost! I'll just have to ask for the money up front, you know, to cover the acquisition. I'm a bit strapped here since you shot up my employees." He seems to realize at least, he's hardly in a strong bargaining position.
The golden vixen throws Jason a grin as she passes by, lugging Robin, and whispers in his ear, "Think we have time for a quick... shower... while we're here?"
The arms dealer struggles to his feet, but makes no hostile moves, realizing that he's still under the beady eyes of RIU and being tracked by Jason's own gun.
"I have bigger issues to deal with than acquiring new stuff. Speaking of which, have you heard from Irongrip again? What exactly is their game?" Jason asks. Inari's question causes him some pause. "Er, if the ambulance picks these guys up, I expect Andrei's thugs to show up not soon after .. so probably not," he admits.
The golden vixen pouts. "It would have been a perfect way to unwind," she murmurs. She studies the hatch leading upward, then throws Jason a questioning look as if to ask if it's boobytrapped.
"I don't disagree, but we can't right now. Maybe back in the base," Jason suggests. "And oh, right," he adds as he sends RIU over to release the trigegr contacts on the hatch so that it doesn't set off the electrical 'bomb' as it were.
Desoto shakes his head. "Irongrip! Those jumped-up jackbooted jerks, muscling in on a simple little transaction," he snarls, keeping his hands in plain sight. "After you took out our base-- that is, Mav's Mavericks' base," he corrects himself, since he's not exactly working with them anymore. "Word has it that Mav decided to cut his losses and sign up with them. And since they were the biggest gang around, I don't see much to keep Irongrip from turning the Dregs into his own little kingdom."
Inari lugs Robin up, disappearing from sight briefly. Groans can be heard from where the unconscious scavenger gets bumped against the sides of the ventilation shaft overhead.
"They're also planning some major operation in the very near future," Jason remarks. "And frankly I wouldn't put much past their head guy. He and I go ways back. He wouldn't be alive right now were it not for me, but I suppose that is beside the point. I also doubt their plan is to control the dregs. That's too 'small scale' for him."
Desoto says cagily, "You could be right. Maybe what you need is someone with contacts, someone who can go asking around for you in the places you wouldn't normally go. For a small fee, I'd be happy to ask those questions."
"I already have people I can go to," Jason notes as he smirks. "My tentacles are everywhere, so to speak."
It takes a bit of prompting, but Jason prises out information from Desoto and his phone that gives him a bit more information: it seems as if Irongrip is shifting his most experienced personnel to California, particularly those with SEAL-style training for hazardous terrain and climates, and using the less experienced ones to fill in his security needs out in North Bend. "Not that I have much in the way of 'personnel' to offer him anymore, but that is the word on the grapevine," Desoto admits.
"That has significant meaning. Can you guess what? I can give you a hint, four years ago," Jason prompts the strange Hispanic man. "Seems I need to contact the General and just flat ask him what he's up to."
"Four years ago... Um." The businessman looks upward. "There was that series of murders. Dios! They whispered of the Shadow Killer, who would strike out of nowhere and bloodily kill someone, leaving behind scraps that looked as if they had been chewed upon. But they stopped happening. Perhaps the Shadow Killer was killed by someone he would have slain." He eyes Jason edgily. "Or... Do you think the Shadow Killer has returned?"
While they chat, Inari returns for the other two scavengers. She looks a bit bemused by this show of mercy for common street scum, but if Jason wants to be nice to thieves who would have killed him for pocket change...
"Eh, not quite. Although that is interesting," Jason remarks, shrugs, and continues, "That was probably someone else I know of. Anyway, no, the giant disaster at the amusement part. Don't you follow any conspiracy theories at all? Just because they all sound crazy doesn't mean they are. Now, Irongrip is run by someone very dangerous, and was touched by those events. Almost as crazy as Dantech, but at least Irongrip will just kill you. Dantech will rape your brain."
"Amusement parks? They are for children," Desoto says with a shrug. "Dantech, now, that is serious business. But I don't deal in Q-Cores. Difficult to steal. Impossible to maintain."
"Oh, what I could tell you about what is inside a Q-Core," Jason remarks.
Desoto looks curious. "Is highly proprietary technology, no? No one walks away from Dantech, they say. Not if they wish to live."
"Lets just say it really brings new meaning to a thinking machine," Jason remarks as he flips his gun over to the tranq dart setting. "Try and stay out of trouble. If you try to attack me, or otherwise betray me again, next time I won't be so nice," he remarks, takes aim at Desoto's bandaged hand from short range, and tries to tranq-dart him into unconciousness.
"Ow!" Desoto says. "What did... you..." His voice slurs as the dart takes effect. He slumps to the ground just as Inari returns.
The golden vixen smirks. "Another one to go out with the trash?" she asks.
"Yes. And hm, I'm tempted to send him out naked," Jason admits.
"Ew! I didn't think your tastes went that way," Inari teases. "Do I have to disown you?"
"Ha ha. Originally you wanted to kill me. Now you want to disown me. Fine thanks that is!" Jason remarks. "I'll go get the hover sled and load up the gear while you dispose of him."
The golden vixen laughs, but shoulders Desoto and starts to haul him up the ladder.
"I really want to tear that suit off her and ... " Jason mutters, right up to the point RIU bites his ear. "Ow! Okay, okay, I'm going and loading up the transport. You don't have to be so jealous."
The minidragon chirrs wrapping itself around Jason's neck. Mine!
"You can share," Jason mutters.
Stored snug and safe away are the powered armor suit (disassembled), Inari's sniper rifle, and the two stealthsuits, one liberated from Mav's Mavericks and the other borrowed by the unfortunate Thomas Whaley for his daughter. Getting into the armor may require assistance, unless Jason feels like spending a few hours working on some kind of armor assembly function for it.
Kimon reports the safe arrival of the thugs upstairs, along with the unconscious Mr. Desoto. "The Avatars LLC security guards have attached restraining straps and taken them into custody," the household AI reports. "They are summoning medical assistance."
Jason taps the side of his head. "Kimon, set up a call to Thomas Whaley, please," Jason instructs, "All the usual redirects of course. I need to let him how his walking pajamas are coming home."
Beep! A cyberspace routing map superimposes itself onto Jason's vision, showing the call progress.
"Sergeant Thomas Whaley," a voice answers after a moment. "What? Sorry, sir, I know we're inventorying, but it's a message from my daughter's school. She must be in some kind of trouble. You know how it is, young girls tend to run wild. All right. Five minutes it is, sir."
"You know, if you're too busy I won't bother you with the small details about your Daughter's wandering illusionary underwear," Jason remarks through the link. "Or that it will be in a location you can pick it up in a bit."
"Oh, no, no, I didn't mean you," the gruff voice of Mr. Whaley says. "Sorry, we're all rushing around here, trying to get everything unpacked and counted."
"Yes, about that. Exactly why is the General sending an army to California? Just what is his plan?" Jason asks.
"How'd you know about that? I just got the notice this morning, I'll be going along as quartermaster for the expedition," Whaley says. Short pause. "Right, just confirmed we aren't being bugged locally. We've got to prep a fully armed team for any and all environmental conditions. In Palmdale! I don't know what the boss is thinking. But he wants a scouting force with full environmental suits, and the rest of us loaded for bear. 'Prepared for anything and everything,' were his exact words."
"'No matter what world we might wind up in,'" Thomas adds, confused. "I mean, there isn't even a spaceport in Palmdale."
"I swear I need to call that man and ask him what the hell he's up to," Jason remarks rather dryly. "As for how I know, there's little I don't know. Your boss, for example, wouldn't be alive were it not for me. But, that's a different matter entirely. I have the suit and I'll be dropping it off at a location ear your office soonish. I'm not going to say where until it's in place and I'm gone. I have this aversion to being ambushed."
"Understood, and thanks, I owe you!" says the grateful-sounding Thomas Whaley.
In the background Jason can hear the telltale sounds of a privacy screen, preventing anyone outside the office from eavesdropping on Whaley. "You'll have to tell me sometimes how you saved the boss's life," Whaley says. "Right now though, I've got to get back to directing the inventory, I don't want them counting sneaksuits until last."
"Then how about you keep me up to date on what is going on out in California when you get there?" Jason requests. "Anyway, you should hear from be again in half an our or less, if all goes well. I'll just send you a private message with the coordinates."
"Will do!" Whaley says. "Just give me a dropbox and I'll file a report. Ah. I just hope it doesn't lead to us getting shot up in an ambush. My daughter might kind of miss me," he adds with a bit of worry.
"If I told you what I suspect, you wouldn't believe me. Just try to stay out of trouble. Bye," Jason says and then cuts the comm. "Okay, we've got to drop this suit off in a tunnel near to Irongrip. Not too close, of course, but close enough. Then we get out of there.".
Inari nods. "I liked the part where he tried to guilt trip you into not shooting at him, in case we turned out to be the opposition," she says, kissing Jason's nose.
"I'll just aim for his head, since he seems to lack anything substantial in it," Jason quips. "And after I drop this suit off, I think I'll give the General a call."
The golden vixen laughs at Jason's wit. "Should be a safe non-vital target," she agrees.
Over the next hour, they get close to the part of the fortified suburbs closest to Irongrip Security, and then the golden vixen takes the package and sneaks into position, with Jason monitoring her progress over the headphones and on his map. The drop goes off without a hitch, as Inari bypasses the security cameras so deftly they don't even notice a whisper of the wind in her passing.
One private message later, they can observe as Thomas Whaley takes a 'walk'-- down into the sewers, where he furtively hustles to the pickup point and picks up the package.
In person, Whaley is a big burley man with a thick beard, black hair tied up into a ponytail that hangs out the back of his Irongrip Security baseball cap. He turns to climb up the ladder.
"So far, so good. At least one thing has gone okay," Jason thinks nervously. He doesn't do anything yet as he's terrified it might mess up the drop.
As Whaley gets to the top of the stairs, he stares up at the hatch, or more accurately, at the guards that have gathered there. "Uh... G-g-good day, boss," he stammers.
A familiar deep voice speaks. "Out for a walk, eh? I see you've found something interesting."
"Of course," Jason thinks and sighs, "Now what do I do about this?" He shakes his head and thinks. "Kimon, locate and call the General's cell phone please."
"In progress," Kimon says over Jason's implant.
"I-i-it's not how it looks," Thomas says as the guards descend the ladder from the parking lot. "Someone ripped off some of our inventory, and I had to track it down, and..."
"Come on call, go through," Jason thinks.
"Vilius Irons found in database," Kimon says quietly in Jason's head. "What level of indirection do you wish?"
"As much as can be managed in the next sixty seconds! Jason answers.
Kimon replies, "Rerouting call." A cyberspace map shows the call pinging from one spot to another.
"Inari, I have a bad feeling. Help me set up this mess of metal armor quickly. I don't want to see that guy get a bullet in his head really," Jason admits to Inari and does to deal with his not quite as pretty as the virtual-version armor. At least with two people it doesn't involve hopping around and bending at weird angles to hold stuff long enough to lock it on. He's also grateful Tracy isn't here to comment.
Mr. Irons, unseen, shakes his head. "Tsk, tsk, really, Mr. Whalen. Do you think me completely oblivious to the peccadillos of my employees? You were far, far too nervous for a simple inventory, a sure sign of a guilty soul. It was a simple matter to check the call log and note that your most recent call had not been from your daughter's school, and from there, I simply needed to confirm that you were rectifying some misdeed by following your every motion." He pauses. "Selling a sneaksuit on the black market? Do I not pay you enough, Mr. Whalen? I am shocked."
"No! That's not how it is," Mr. Whalen protests. "Please, you have to believe me! I was just borrowing it for my daughter's costume party! I was going to put it right back, but..."
"Inari, stay out of sight. I may have to intervene if my call doesn't go through ... and I may need someone to save me," Jason tells the kitsune.
The two guards, in full armor, move down to secure Mr. Whalen on both sides.
Inari nods quietly. "If he kills you, he won't live out the day," she vows quietly.
"Call ready," Kimon whispers. "Maximum level of indirection reached."
"I don't plan to die. I still have to cave in Andrei's face," Jason promises.
"Call him," Jason says as he starts towards the general and his guards.
Mr. Irons's PDA goes off with the Imperial March. He starts, then answers it. His face pops up in Jason's vision. "Irongrip Security, the Irongrip speaking," he says brusquely.
"You know, I really thought better of you," Jason remarks once the 'General' is done with his introduction. "Here I gave you a second chance at life and here you use it by trying to kill my friend. Not only that, now you're bullying an employee that was really just trying to help his daughter out. I know you're going to go on about how you don't believe that, but it's true. I know because I'm the one who found that suit; and you should thank me that I stripped off the virus that was infecting it. I also tried to return it today, but no. You wouldn't even stay out of that. Now the question is this: What are you going to do? Because if you do anything I don't like thee world is going to find out exactly who and what you are."
"What-- Jason!" the General says, recognizing the voice. "But how... Perhaps you'd better give me the story from the beginning."
"That suit was found in the garbage after Whaley's kid threw it out after a small incident when trying to use it for a costume. Don't believe me? Well, then check this out. The only wrong thing your employee did was try to please his rather demanding daughter. Fortunately karma got its own revenge for that," Jason remarks. He even sends over the 'link' to the Face Reality posting of his daughter's video. "It ended up in my hands though a rather round-about way and I ended up stripping off that virus, then tracking down where the suit came from. Given I try to stay out of trouble and notice I promised your employee I would get it back to him, and this is the first chance I've had. I'm sure you've seen the news, I have been shot at for days, starting with the attack on Randall and Mara, then the numerous attacks on Avatar's home offices by your former Empire."
Irons listens thoughtfully at first, then surprised and even furious. "I authorized no attack on my old compatriots," he declares. "And what is this-- the Empire attacked Avatars LLC? This is an outrage! I had heard they were under attack by terrorists, and I offered my assistance, but they declined my services." He shakes his head. "The Empire... It's been so long." The emotion on his face is hard to interpret. "Perhaps we had better meet in person, Mr. Edwards. It seems there is much I need to know about the situation at hand."
Thomas Whaley looks confused, his hands still in the air. One of the guards has relieved him of the sneaksuit package and the other is holding him under cover.
"I can forward the copies of the e-mails used to arrange Mav's little gang in their attack on Randall. They came from your company," Jason notes. "And give me a couple minutes and I'll be right there."
"Understood. What do you wish me to do with my erstwhile logistics officer?" asks Mr. Irons. "I'm given to understand that 'firing' does not, these days, involve being stood in front of a line of soldiers and shot."
Mr. Whaley blanches. He only hears one side of the conversation, but that side does sound alarming.
"He's guilty of giving in to his kids too much. Watch that link and understand he has to deal with that. So perhaps a formal reprimand for bad decisions and perhaps a week's docking of wages would suffice. He did, after all, try to fix his mistake and at his own expense," Jason suggests. "He was not disloyal to you or your company after all. It hardly warrants something severe."
"Very well. Sergeant Whaley!" At the sound of Mr. Irons's voice, the Sergeant stiffens. "I am very disappointed with your misuse of Imp-- Irongrip resources for personal reasons. However, I am not without heart, and thus I will allow you to return to duty. You will be fined for the amount of time in which the inventory was unavailable." A pause. "This is your final warning. I will have to let you go, with extreme prejudice, if you fail me again."
"Sir! Yes, sir!" says Mr. Whaley.
"Return to duty!" barks Mr. Irons. The Sergeant double-times it up the ladder, followed by the guards.
"As for you, Jason-- I will be expecting you in a few minutes. Fall out, men, and return to work We have much to get done!" says the General.
And true to his word (and once the guards are gone), Jason comes around the corner in full armor. At least he bothered to take the helmet off. "So, what exactly is going on?" Jason asks. "Every bit of evidence we have seen have indicated you are part of some plan to reopen gateways to 'other worlds'. From the e-mails that indicated Irongrip wanted Randall and Mara taken, to this new mass-movement of people to California, you had to admit it looks suspicious."
Vilius Irons shakes his head, once he's had a chance to review the data. "This... I would never hire cheap armed thugs to assassinate my friends," he says. "If I meant to betray Randall and his Avatar, it would be Irongrip-stamped metal that did the killing." He eyes Jason. "But you are skeptical. Come inside, I will give you access to our systems so you can track down the author of these messages."
Inari's voice whispers over Jason's implant, "Are you going to trust that cheap jackbooted thug? Why'd he leave Avatars LLC in the first place?"
"Inari, stay hidden and keep watch. This may be a trap. If it is, well, I need you to save my butt," Jason relays to Inari through the mind-to-comm link. "Before I go anywhere with you," Jason now says out loud, "Why did you leave Avatar's LLC anyway?"
"It was not the Empire," Irons says. "Yes, they made the world in which the Empire lives... But here, they are simply a large company. They do not have a vision for the world. They simply seek to entertain... And that does not stir my heart." He walks toward the door slowly.
"The WHITE advised me. Perhaps what I needed was to make a difference. To help build the Empire's vision of order in this world. But it could not be done while I was still employed by Avatars LLC," he says. "There would be many lawsuits, many arguments that one company was gaining power by force over many. I would need my own company, and I would need funds that did not come from Avatars. So, I started Irongrip Security. Peace and order... For a price."
"Mmmhmm," Jason muses, "And this mass movement of people to California? Does this have something to do with the Zeus System?"
"Zeus? No. It is the largest contract we have received by far," General Irons says. "It would allow me to complete my ambitions of securing the Dregs, ridding them of this ridiculous anarchy. Mr. Romanov contacted me and requested a division of my best personnel for what he calls the 'Ouroboros Project'. A project that Dantech is working on for your US government, I understand. As he describes it, it would allow one to project soldiers anywhere, instantly. But of course, being experimental... There is the chance that 'anywhere' might not be on Earth."
Jason coughs. "And you trust Andrei? The man is bordering in insane. He'll use anyone for any thing and right now I'm number one on his hit list. So, it looks like I have to decline your invitation," he says. "He was able to rip into my head once and I don't intend to give him another chance to do it again."
Mr. Irons stops, turns around to Jason. "Trust him? Irrelevant. He is a customer. I do not agree to contracts that violate my principles, but once I have taken a contract, I will see that it is completed," he says. "And in return, if my employers attempt to breach the terms of the contract, I will take my pound of flesh out of their hide. The assignment seems simple enough. All we need to do is to secure a beachhead, wherever their Ouroboros project takes them, and protect their scientists while they complete their measurements and refine their process." He raises an eyebrow. "I take it that I shouldn't mention your little visit to Mr. Romanov then."
"Trust is very much relevant here. Andrei will use you however he sees fit and if that includes making you a scapegoat or betraying you, he'll do it without blinking," Jason says, "And yes, it would be ill advised to mention it to him, considering that I know he uses human brains inside his little Q-Core devices. He doesn't quite want that public knowledge. And given that now we are both in the same situation since you just heard that, I suppose I could at least go see who sent those requests. You may have your own spy issues."
"Human brains!" Irons looks up at this curiously. "But... What's the point? Q-Cores can't get up and walk around like our war golems could, back in the Empire."
The General ponders. "At least, I'm unaware of this aspect of their capavility. Perhaps if they had concealed wheels, and guns... No," he says, noticing Jason's look. "Never mind. I'll bring you inside and you can have a word with our Mr. Whaley, if you wish."
"I don't have all the details on why, just the what. We found this out after the BLACK staged a little coup at Avatar's. It failed and now it's quite dead. I cut its links using an arc-welder of a sort," Jason notes. "And fine, I'm going to trust you for the moment. We may have a common foe and frankly, we may have been deliberately played against each other. Considering that there are only a few who know about, and dealt with, what happened some years back, having us work together again might be exactly what they don't want. And one more thing to worry about: Andrei has a clone-version of me that's acting as his little slave."
"A clone! Is it the one that little Akiko saved?" asks Irons.
"The same one," Jason agrees.
"Or did he somehow grow-- ah." The General shakes his head. "I confess, I had thought with your culture's prohibition against clones, it would have been destroyed once your scientists had finished obtaining what information they could from it. Does Mr. Romanov have something against you personally? Or does he simply recognize the potential for great talent in your genes?"
Inari whispers into Jason's commlink, "The General is creeping me out."
"Me too, but it may provide some information. Just keep an eye on everything and be ready to save my butt if I need it. I'll make it up to you somehow," Jason tells Inari over the comm. "He and I go way back. We've been ... rivals for a long time," he explains. "Ironically his attempt to 'keep and eye on me', as well as have a way to kill me at his whim sort of backfired on him. He never thought I might figure out how to use the experimental neural interface as well as I have, or that I would figure out how to disable the kill switch."
Irons nods. "Ah! Good men have friends, great men have rivals," he says, quoting an Imperial adage. "Well, then, come on in. I give you my word of safe-conduct that you will be free to leave."
"I hope so. If nothing else we might learn who tried to set your company up, along with creating rifts between old allies," Jason agrees as he follows after Irons. "Inari, I really hope I'm not being stupid here. Part of me wants to believe that he actually isn't an enemy in this. Why is it that I always try to give people a chance? Especially those tho try to kill me?" the mast bit carries with it obvious hints of a tease, but it doesn't entirely mask his real worries. Sometimes you just have to have faith in people. Perhaps that is all this is about; he wants to have faith that in helping this man years ago would mean that now he really wasn't behind the attacks.
(OOC) Log stop Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-11-13-back-at-the-hideout.htmlWednesday, December 4 - 12 PM Noon Eastern
It's lunch time and Jason, Tracy, Cadena, and Inari have returned from their various errands-- not empty handed in Jason's case, as he bears a package with Tracy's military sneaksuit (obtained from Mav's Mavericks), a Tesla coil, and batteries thereof. His powered armor is further testimony that he's better equipped now than he has been in some time. Inari carries her laser sniper rifle slung over her back.
The old-fashioned flatscreen TV mounted up in one room corner shows security camera footage of the outside, which is at present just the Einhorn mecha swiveling its gaze to and fro. Inset into the camera view is an infobox showing the latest news headlines. Apparently Dantech is continuing to search for the purported 'high technology spies' that made off with industrial secrets. Legal actions are pending between Avatars LLC, currently recovering from its outage, and Dantech and Arcadia Developments, something to do with the aircar that went down on the Avatars LLC campus, shot down by Dantech forces.
There isn't exactly a lot in the way of gourmet cuisine in the base, but the white-furred dog 'morph works with what he's got, improvising with emergency supplies and outdoor camping gear from the armory. It's amazing what one can do with frozen chicken and reconstituted dried vegetables.
Cadena is still sporting the security guard "disguise" that Tracy rigged up for him, consisting of flexible bullet-resistant armor (not quite as heavy as his modified "boomhound" armor) and a tail-concealing overcoat with a few stains in it. He busies himself with tidying up the kitchenette area after fixing up lunch.
"I think someone was able to use the Emergency Broadcast Channel to activate my bracer and send me a text message," Tracy notes to Jason and Inari. "I haven't fiddled with it for fear of losing any forensic data trail - but the message was 'Within the seed a flower waits to be born' and 'The Godslayer brings the Fimbulwinter.' I think the latter is a reference to the ZEUS system."
"I'm thankful you haven't put him in a French maid's outfit yet," Jason remarks after a casual glance towards the dog-domestic. The comment about the message, though, gives him pause. "That sounds like some cryptic comment by a quest AD; my guess would be the WHITE. I'll have to look into it. The 'Godslayer' comment is directed at Andrei, though; that much I'm certain of."
"Land sakes," Cadena mutters quietly to himself, as he digs through the break room fridge. "Didn't know they were growing bio-weapons here, too." He calmly disposes of some greenish, fuzzy leftovers from the back of the fridge.
"Not Jason Zero?" Tracy asks, and hands over her Crystal Bracer wrist computer. "If it was over the EBC, then it would have to have been transmitted line-of-sight for just me to have gotten it, right?"
The news reporter of the hour says, "In other news, the search for the missing Inari enters its second day. Voya representatives have asked all Inari fans everywhere to report should they see the famous rock star; she is believed to have been attacked by some kind of cyberhypnosis and may be under the control of some foreign agent, identity as yet unknown." The camera cuts to a gathering of Inari fans at a pseudo-Japanese shrine, burning incense and praying for her safe return.
The golden vixen glances up at the camera and snorts. "What surprises me is that I put up with their bull for so long," she says.
"Maybe they had you under cyberhypnosis the whole time?" Tracy suggests with a smirk.
"Nope. Pretty certain it is Andrei. Hand over the bracer and I'll ... so I'm some sort of foreign agent with mind control powers now? Going by that logic I need a shark tank with lasers attached to their head, a ridiculous accent, and a thin mustache," Jason comments after a roll of his eyes. "And oh, it's probably important to know, but we have another ally, sort of. The General. It seems Dantech has been playing them too."
Cadena walks past Inari to get some cleaning supplies from the cabinet. "That's show business, ma'am," he comments. "Making a mountain out of a molehill is just part of the game. Wouldn't be half surprised if they invented some colorful villains to come on screen and take responsibility, just to keep the story fresh."
RIU perches on Jason's shoulder. It would make an ideal video game nemesis's pet! (preens, pose)
"This just gets more complicated ... and you would so have a shark tank if you could, I'm sure," Tracy notes. "What does having the General on our side give us?"
"An inside channel to information about some sort of portaling crap the government is doing with Dantech out in California," Jason notes.
"And speaking of colorful villains, I'm half-motivated to create a video showing Inari captured and in chains while one of plays up some stupid cartoony villain and send that to them anonymously. Or maybe Inari in a French maid's outfit..."
"You mean the Government really knows what ZEUS is for?" Tracy asks, sounding scared. "If that's true, then trying to expose Dantech's skeletons would be even more dangerous.."
Jason pokes around on Tracy's bracer for a bit, prodding this and that ... then ending it by licking the screen. "It was HECATE that sent you the cryptogram," he concludes.
"Ah, Mr. Edwards, I reckon you shouldn't be so familiar with that bracer," Cadena advises. "We just got out of the sewers."
"Why did you do that?" Tracy says, making a face at the licking. "Oh, HECATE ... then it's some sort of message from Miss Arcadia?"
"To make you blink," Jason comments as he tosses the licked bracer back to Tracy. "And I doubt it is from Arcadia directly; too poetic and cryptic. It was just her system."
Inari looks askance at Jason as he licks Tracy's bracer.
"That doesn't really help us understand what it means though," Tracy notes, using her sleeve to wipe off the screen of her bracer. "Seed growing into a flower could mean an atomic bomb is going to go off, or just about anything.."
Cadena helpfully hands Tracy a disinfectant sheet on his way around the table.
The girl smiles to the thoughtful canine.
"Or it may have to do with Arcadia's daughter," Jason points out. "It's unlikely to be destructive as the metaphor is one of life and growth. Haven't you ever read any poetry?"
"Does Goth poetry count?" Tracy asks.
"I'm inclined to go with Mr. Edwards's interpretation," Cadena notes, in the middle of taking inventory of the shelf-stable goods in the break room stocks. "The apocalyptic imagery of the Fimbulwinter seems to go right along with that 'Godslayer' business. And the Palmdale community logo. That points to a particular place or hints at a specific event."
"Barely," Jason notes. He leans his chair back and looks over to Inari. "So, do you want to do anything about your ... employers and their current crazy stuff? They're probably secretly liking it as I bet sales of all merchandise related to you have shot through the roof. On the down side, I bet online auctions are inundated with really disturbing things that are claimed to be related to you or your disappearance."
"Does Dantech have a facility in or near Palmdale?" Tracy asks, once her bracer is disinfected and placed back on her forearm.
The Palmdale comment nearly causes Jason to topple over backward! He only barely averts disaster by hooking his foot around a table leg. "Palmdale? That's where the General is headed for the Government/Dantech project," he says. "You left out the most useful part of the whole message!"
The golden vixen noses Jason, draping her arms around him. "They can suffer for now. We should take care of this other business... Then we can deal with them at leisure." She draws out the e in the last word, smiling fangily.
"Well, I figured we'd be heading there, out west, next," Cadena says, while stooped over and digging through one of the lower cabinets. "S'why I'm looking for what we can use for rations, and cleaning up to cover our trail."
"I can think of other things I would rather do as leisure ... " Jason remarks to Inari; very obviously distracted from the current topic for a moment.
"Can we securely contact Randall? He's out that way now.." Tracy asks, waving a hand to try and get Jason's attention back.
"What? Abduct Randall? He wouldn't like that very much; nor would Akiko. Well, unless it was like the episode of his favorite show where. .. eh-heh. What were we talking about?" Jason asks.
The vixen rests her chin on Jason's head, causing RIU to beep jealously. "Those other things come afterward," she points out. "Avatars LLC does maintain a site in Palmdale, it's where we Avatars-made-real go to summer and recharge our batteries. In a manner of speaking. Something about that location allows us to gain our magical energies back."
"Do you think the Government wants to tap in to magic?" Tracy asks. "And how can we get across the country.. oh, right. HECATE.."
"One way we get across is with a plane ticket," Jason notes, "And some doofy disguises."
"Or we just pretend to be some of the General's group and go with them in a military escort," Jason adds.
Tracy stares are Jason for a moment, then slowly pans her gaze to the giant talking fox and dog. "If the General is our ally, why can't he just take us along without some pretense?" she asks.
"How about a chartered flight?" Cadena asks. "You could bypass all that security. I don't rightly care for airports."
"Because Dantech will quit 'trusting' him if they know we're working together and I rather like having an inside line," Jason points out.
"Speaking of inside lines," Cadena asks, "can we get any sort of world-net connectivity while we're here? Something that won't bring all manner of trouble on our heads by giving away our position? I used to live in Palmdale, after all. ... That is, you know, before I got assigned and all. But things've likely changed. I don't head back there to 'summer' as Miss Inari says."
Inari grins. "Well, just remember we have to avoid thousands of screaming fans looking for the golden fox," she says. "Your disguise worked for a while last time, but do you want to risk getting bagged and brought to Voya this time if you can't slip 'em, Tracy?"
"I still think the most secure means to get there is to walk via portals," Tracy notes. "You can't be shot down!"
"If portals open, then we use 'em," Cadena says. "But since we don't have them at our beck and call, it doesn't hurt to have another route handy. And the same preparations would be useful either way." He continues packing some shelf-stable rations into his "go bag."
"I could probably rig something up. We've got tin cans, some chewing gum, and a turnip, right?" Jason asks. "Or .. I can just go the boring route and make use of the military-grade communications gear in 'Mister Stompy' out there."
"If we use portals, we can take Mister Stompy with us, too," Tracy points out, probably as incentive.
"In other news, the Avatars LLC outage continues to extend as the embattled company works around the clock to restore critical systems," the news reporter says. "Dantech as its major market competitor reports the Gloamings has reached a new high score for simultaneous users logged in, and other VR games report similar gains. It remains to be seen whether Avatars's users will be ready to return once the major VR game does."
"I hate the news," Tracy mutters. "I guess we're all decided at least that Palmdale is the place to be, however we get there?"
"You know, as much as I dislike Avatar's game in general, it annoys me that Dantech is benefiting from the problem they caused," Jason remarks. "I'd love to completely shut down Gloaming for a bit."
Cadena hmms. "I don't reckon HECATE can open portals point-to-point from here to there. We'd have to pass through some virtual realm. Now might be a prime time to use those Diadem lands as a pass-through point. Not likely to be much traffic to give us trouble, especially since they're minus a BLACK to give us any challenges there."
"And I guess at least two of you don't stand out in there. I do because, well, no fantasy persona and all that," Jason notes.
RIU noses Jason meaningfully.
"There's also Sasha's back-door into the Gloaming," Tracy points out. "That was just a stroll from an entry HECATE opened to the base in California."
"I'm half-tempted to see the Gloaming world," Jason admits.
"You've got a pet dragon," Cadena notes. "And a gauntlet o' power. That'd satisfy much of anybody who'd care. But, remember, we won't have any pesky heroes who would care." He hmms, then adds, "Of course, I'd like to stay around here, or even camp out at the Arcadia estate, so I can see it through that little Miss Margie gets back to this world in one piece. But with HECATE's warning, I think that clearly says to me - as much as any riddle has a right to - that we've got trouble first. That Dantech fellow wants to kill the 'gods' - or the ADs. No ADs, no healing magic. No healing magic, and that winter is going to make sure that flower doesn't bloom. So I figure we've got to pull up stakes and head west and deal with that first."
"You'd like the Gloaming," Tracy claims. "Everyone is out to get you there."
Jason rocks his chair back upright and has to detangle himself from Inari. "I'm going to go see if I can get the link you wanted working. Any special requests? Like ... having a Mime interface?"
The golden vixen murmurs, "Bring me back some croissants from the corner store, dear?"
"I'm just going into the next room, sorry," Jason tells Inari as he slips out of the room to go borrow Mister Stompy's communication system.
"I'm ... not familiar with that particular interface, sir," Cadena admits to Mr. Edwards in passing. "I'm not up on all that computer jargon. I'm just a casual user, you might say."
"Hey, Inari.. can I ask you something personal?" Tracy asks, once Jason has gone to the other room.
Cadena walks over to do some noisy cleaning near the doorway, turning and nodding casually to Tracy.
The golden vixen looks over at Tracy, draping herself in a flowing motion to sit in Jason's chair. "Yes?"
"The whole Brian Montagne thing.. do you think he really loved you?" the girl asks.
Inari pauses. "He was good at making me think he did," she says after a bit. "But he wanted me to change. To be his housewife, to give up singing. How can you love someone and still want to clip their wings?"
"Too keep them from flying too high and getting burned by the sun I guess," Tracy says. "Are you going to go back to all that celebrity stuff again?"
Cadena quickly finishes up whatever noisy cleaning task he was doing in this spot, and migrates through the doorway after Jason, noisily finding other things to clean, a little further out of earshot of Tracy and Inari - and closing the door after himself.
The golden vixen shakes her head. "Not... Not in the same way. I still love getting in front of an audience, don't get me wrong, and giving 'em a show they can tell their kids about. But the rest of it... The staged lifestyle outside the show, the cameras following me around, the hints that I really should do something extreme just to maintain my image... I could do without that."
Tracy nods. "One more thing though: what will you do if we bump into 'Brian' again? Are you angry with him or anything?"
Inari grins. "If it were just me, honey, I'd just claw him up a little... But since he messed with my Jason..."
"He sorta is Jason though, and... well, what if the 'self destruct' mechanism in his implant is still functional? We don't know what he's doing of his own free will or on threat of head-explosion from Dantech."
The golden vixen leans forward toward Tracy, looking her in the eyes. "Do you really think him trying to make me his wife is part of some kind of Dantech plot, sugar?"
Jason is in the maintenance bay upside down with his feet sticking out of the back of the huge robot. "Almost there," his voice remarks rather muffledly. "Good thing no one broke the relay system. Should have random hopping active; then you should have a generally untraceable link."
"I have no idea," Tracy admits. "I can just ask myself, 'Would the Jason I know do that?' And I can't even answer that half the time."
"Maybe facing my nemesis and learning that she wasn't out to get me has forced me to rethink a lot of things," the teenager admits.
Inari laughs. "Sasha?" she asks. "What did you wind up doing with her?"
Cadena works his way out to the maintenance dock, pausing occasionally to make sure he can hear the murmur of voices - but once satisfied that there's little danger of the particulars carrying all the way out here, he sets aside the cleaning for now and strolls over to observe Mr. Edwards at work. "You look right at home up there, sir! I commend your ability to make do with the oddest things."
"She's just.. in custody," Tracy notes. "I don't really care what she does anymore." She slouches in her chair a bit, and looks to the door where the men went. "But if I was wrong about her, and about Penny Arcadia, and Jason was wrong about the General.. then how can I not think we might be wrong about Jason Zero too? So.. please, don't do anything to him until we know for sure if he deserves it?"
Inari says, "That depends on what he does. Tracy, you do realize if he is as smart as our Jason, he is insanely deadly and dangerous and could probably kill us with an unseen boobytrap if we let down our guard for even a second?" The slim black-jumpsuited vixen eyes the teenager.
"You make do with what you have on hand. Necessity is the mother of invention; the father is laziness of course," Jason comments from halfway inside the machine. "Plus it helps pass the time when you're home on a Friday night without much to do or anyone to visit."
"Do you believe Jason would do that, then?" Tracy asks.
The golden vixen shakes her head. "He has his traps, but he won't kill." She looks Tracy in the eyes. "But can you say the same thing about Jason Zero? Wasn't there a little incident involving some explosives in the comm room?"
Cadena laughs heartily at Jason's comment. "Makes me sorry I never learned to be a proper handyman." He strolls over to the Capricorn motorbike, and glides a gloved hand over it, then takes another look, pulls out a cloth, and wipes a smudge off the finish. "This here bike is still in working order. I suppose once I get a chance, I'd like to make sure there's nothing untoward with this model. You know, like, being discontinued because of improper rad-shielding that made the riders grow an extra pair of legs." He taps on the "Fusion Power" logo on the engine casing, designed in such a way to make a warning label look more like a boast, in a nice PR spin. "If we have to take the low road, it seems like I've got some ability to ride rattling around in the back of my head. Sort of comes and goes, though. I have to concentrate on it. I guess on account of that sort of skill not getting much use in lands of floating islands and sky ships."
"I don't know what to think, is my point," Tracy says. "Maybe I'm just curious about him." She seems to be sinking into one of her funks again.
Inari leans over and licks Tracy on the nose.
The girl blinks, then grins and rubs her nose. "So, you're the one teaching Jason weird new tongue-using habits, eh?" she notes with a grin.
Jason waves his arm out of the cavity he's half-submerged in, screwdriver in hand. "If it worked perfectly, where would be the fun? Half of enjoying something is getting a chance to figure out how it works and tinker on it; then improve it. It's ... gratifying to be able to say 'I built that'. Plus, it also usually means you appreciate it more." His arm and the screwdriver disappears back into the frame for a few seconds before he adds, "Besides, you often appreciate it more if you really worked for it instead of just bought it."
The golden vixen winks. "Or maybe I wanted to see what you tasted like. Chin up, you're a smart girl, I'm just reminding you, don't underestimate Jason's evil twin."
"You mean they aren't both evil?" Tracy asks in mock surprise.
Inari laughs. "If he were, he would totally have turned you in for the bounty," she points out.
Cadena nods absently to Jason. "Right you are. Of course, makes it all the sadder if you have to part with it. But life's like that." He walks closer to where the techno-wizard is working. "Another thing I want to check on is the Palmdale vicinity. I know a little bit about some properties near 'Ground Zero,' but I haven't been in touch for years. Might be still on the market, might have been bought up by Dantech or Avatars LLC, might be abandoned - but if we're lucky, we could find a place to hole up in the area if everything goes south on us and we can't pull in divine favors to get a fast portal out of town."
Tracy nods. "He suggested it a few times," she admits. "I think he was just getting back at me for being a little flirty with him."
"A little?" Inari raises an eyebrow.
"Just a little! He never took it seriously," Tracy claims.
"He only has eyes for you though, really," she adds.
Jason tosses a ported cable out of the body of the robot. "There, that should work with your collar-thing and let you use the communication relay in this thing. "And you're suggesting we buy some land? Or basically squat on some?" he asks as he squirms himself back out of the machine he was tinkering on.
The golden vixen smoothes her neckfur down in the pretense of combing out her hair a bit and doing it up into a ponytail. "That's good, because I'd have words for someone if things ever got a little bit more than 'a little flirty'," she says pointedly.
The robot whirrs as Jason gets off, adjusting its stance to compensate for the shift in weight.
"I'm just a dumb teenager, remember," Tracy points out. "I don't know any better."
"Depends on what it's going for, and who has it," Cadena admits. "If it's inhabited or demolished, then that's right out, unless you're willing to hole up in one of the deluge-worn caves." He takes the end of the cable and takes a moment to try to find the direction connection on his K-9 collar, since he usually just deals with wireless. "All right. Think I've got it here. I hope."
The golden vixen smirks at Tracy. "I'm just reminding you which of us actually has claws, kitten." She gets up, tail floating behind her in a swoosh. "So are you actually thinking about whether Jason Zero can be reformed... If he just needs the love of a caring woman?" She drapes her arms around the teenager's shoulders this time.
"The worst that could happen is it fries your brain," Jason claims, straight-faced.
"I'm more concerned about what mind-games he might employ," Tracy claims, going a bit tense at the shoulder-drape. "I'm pretty insecure after all, and you've met my last boyfriend.."
"He was a bit of a mental case," Inari admits, whispering into Tracy's ear. "Which is why I wonder if you've got a taste for the 'bad boys'. The ones who just need a little changing."
"Hmm," Cadena muses, as he ponders Jason's warning. "Been there. Got the shirt. Here we go." He fires up the K-9 collar connection, and checks out the connection, then starts poking around, using the holo-screen interface. Any casual observer can see, however, that he's far from adept at modern computer information-collecting, as he's just checking publicly available sites, frequently referring to search engines to find the sites he's looking for.
"Maybe a little," Tracy admits. "And it's partly Jason's fault for the teasing, since he didn't warn me about the security cameras.."
The white dog-morph seemed to be closing in on a specific tract of land... But then a miskey sends him stumbling into a database of groundwater contamination and earthquake predictions!
Cadena shakes his head. "I guess the addresses aren't good anymore. Thanks for letting me try."
Jason rubs his hands over his face to try and mask the pain that wants to express itself from watching someone botch using such a simple thing. Finally, he just can't take it anymore. "What are you trying to look up?" he asks.
"Not important." Cadena closes the session. "I suppose I could try sending a message to Ms. Arcadia to see if she got the package, but I might just blow everything to Perdition at this rate. Maybe I just need some rest." He reaches up as if to rub his head, but hits the helmet instead. "It's been ... it's been a day."
"What's bothering you?" Jason asks. "Something is obviously wrong."
Inari tucks a coldwetnose into Tracy's ear. "This is your wakeup call, Miss Trudeau," she says pleasantly.
Tracy jumps at the nose. "What? What's that mean?" she asks nervously. "Is that like the kiss of death? Nose of death?"
"Well, let's say, just for the sake of argument," Cadena drawls, "you happen to remember a few houses that used to be next to the Avatars facility where you were holed up for several years - the first years of your unnatural-born life - and then you go and do a simple Google search on the address, and it AIN'T THERE, never was, and such forth. It either means, first, you can't be trusted with these 'newfangled computer thingies' without hurting someone, second that you can't trust your own recollection and maybe it was all just part of your deluded imaginings and calls into question whether any of it was real, or third, that you just can't get your act together, which is plenty humiliating in its own way. Not a one of those prospects puts me in much of a good mood, sir."
The golden vixen shakes her head. "No, but I wanted to get your attention. Sweetie, think back to your old boyfriend, Mark. Wasn't he always telling you that you needed to change to be what he wanted?"
"I'm not sure Mark ever saw me as I really was in the first place," Tracy notes and frowns a bit. "I sure didn't think he needed me so strongly. Too bad Cadena is crazy too, otherwise he's the nicest guy I've known."
"Street names change, industrial parks are built, so on and so forth. You're reading too much into being unable to locate a couple addresses," Jason points out. "As for the 'newfangled things' you just have to take time to learn them; read a manual, that sort of thing. You aren't just 'born with knowledge' after all. Getting frustrated and giving up is the easy way out. You should channel that into deciding to beat it instead of letting it win." After all that is said, Jason's brow does a little dance. "Hook up that link again, please. I want to check something," he requests.
"Of course, you're right," Cadena says, sighing. "Please pardon me. Everything's so confounded ... murky sometimes." He disconnects the K-9 collar and sets it on a table before hooking it back up, so as to spare them both the awkwardness of leaning in close to try to see a holo-screen projected in front of Cadena's face.
Jason taps the side of his head for a moment for whatever reason. "Give me a second, I want to check some patterns," he remarks as he plops his butt on the edge of the table that supports the collar.
Cadena steps back, giving him space to work. He stands over next to the motorcycle and watches curiously.
In the break room, Inari explains to Tracy, "Would you have wanted to change for Mark's sake?"
Weird spectrometric data spirals up from the holoscreen, moving in oscillating patterns. Cryptic abbreviations and acronyms speckle the charts here and there.
"No," Tracy says. "I was just in the dumps and wanted someone to agree with all the feelings of worthlessness I had. Then I got better and Mark was still Mark so.. I broke it off."
"Well now!" Cadena says, looking confounded. "There you have to go and make it look so ... easy!"
"Well, I have some good news and bad news," Jason says, "And unfortunately which aspect is good and which aspect is bad is ... probably dependant on which way you were hoping it to go. And ... well, if you really want answers about yourself or not."
"I think you've gone and lost me now," Cadena admits to Jason. "So if you could just try reeling it out slow, I'll try to figure out what's good, what's not, and what's middling."
Inari points out, "Then why do you expect Jason Zero to be happy with your efforts to change him? What if he enjoys exploding things?"
"What makes you think I
"What makes you think I'd be trying to change him?" Tracy asks. "I just don't want to hurt someone without all the evidence."
"To quote an old story about a wooden doll that became real," Jason remarks, "You're a real boy, not an artificial construct. Well, you could be a girl, I guess. Hard to tell that from just neural patterns and we don't have any normal women around here to cross-reference."
Inari smirks. "Well, all right then," she says, taking the teenager at her word. "But I've already given him all the chances I want to give him. And from what we've learned so far, we're playing with high stakes here."
"Careful, Mr. Edwards," Cadena says in a mock chiding tone. "Tracy might be listening in. You could hurt her feelings. But please, do go on."
"So.. any preferred method of cross-country travel?" Tracy asks Inari next. "Do you think we should try to sneak into the General's airlift?"
"Either you once had a fetish for motorcycles or maybe it's leaking radiation and warping your brain, but whatever the cause is being in here around it is causing what looks like an original pattern to appear in that odd brain of yours. The base pattern. I can actually make out what are the NPC Cadena aspects; they all follow a specific pattern that has to do with environmental reactions. The baseline pattern is more, well, organic. Or put another way, the main track of the song that is you is on the center chanel and all the little chorus bits the producers add on have been attenuated."
Jason explains.
"Mmm-hmm. And ... you got all that from me punching in keys on my holo-screen?" Cadena asks. "Or did you sneak some sort of neural capability into my K-9 collar when I wasn't looking? If so, well played! Didn't see that one coming."
"The device is synced to you and it monitors your vitals," Jason points out. "How do you think it knows if you're hurt, other than a spike in brain activity and hormone levels? There is also the matter of the NPC patterns; it has to get data from somewhere. I'm not digging into your brain here, I'm just looking at the electrical patterns. I kind of have experience in this." He thumbs back towards the room where Tracy and Inari are.
Inari shrugs. "I'm not too particular... Though I do want to avoid public airports if we can help it," she admits.
Cadena's body posture eases up a bit. "All right. I can't say as I ever got too acquainted with the nuts and bolts of that gizmo. So ... where does that put us, then? And if you're good at finding stuff, maybe I should just give the addresses to you and see if you can find a better angle on what happened to them? Of course, it could still be barking up the wrong tree."
"Beyond maybe creating a virtual bridge-world for creating portals, I don't have any other resources to put towards transportation," Tracy notes, pursing her lips. "Do you even have enough mojo left to disguise yourself?"
The news reporter changes to another subject. "UNE announced today that construction has been completed on all installations of their new Zeus Weather Administration Program. While environmentalist groups around the globe have brought various lawsuits against them, charging them with intent to manipulate the weather for profit and sabotage corporate rivals by engineering disasters, their spokesman appeared at a news conference to assure the public that the risks of calamities were incredibly low, and should an issue arise, aircrafts around the world are standing by with radical weather alignment devices on board, ready to deploy."
Inari nods. "I should be able to manage, though I won't be able to do more than disguise myself," the vixen says, getting up to let Tracy have her personal space back.
"And to try to clarify it a little more. I doubt you know much about signal theory ... so I'll explain. When data is transmitted it is actually composed of two parts: The data stream and the carrier signal. The carrier signal is usually some sort of sinusoidal wave at a specific frequency. It is that frequency you tune to when you adjust to a 'station'. The amount of data that can be carried on it is then dependant of the band around that carrier wave that is dedicated to be the data channel. Anyway, basically at this moment I have actually been able to lock onto your original pattern because your personal carrier waveform is more pronounced right now. It's also allowed me to identify the second carrier wave, that which is the NPC Cadena personality. I can basically see your overlap. Kind of like the whole Inari and Akiko overlap from back when," Jason rambles on. "And maybe the addresses you remember are the places you used to live before, well, you became what you are now. Which
Which would also imply that perhaps they were deliberately built-over/erased to hide what happened. Anyway, it wouldn't hurt to check."
"I don't think we have a lot of time to figure out another mode of transportation," Tracy admits, glaring at the news report. "We've got armor and stuff, but it's all Eagle Security branded. I have faked the Irongrip logo before though.."
"Is there any way to ... suppress this 'second carrier wave'? Make sure it doesn't mess with me anymore?" Cadena asks, measuredly. "I mean, you said it's just this 'NPC' personality, so it's nothing real, right?"
RIU beeps! at this.
"Real is a very subjective thing," Jason notes and thumbs at the dragon on his shoulder. "It's more a question of who you want to be; what you are now, what you were, or something else."
"Well," Cadena says, "that's a big question. I think I've got a few ideas, but it's hard to reconcile it with me ... well ... looking like a dog. I think it might complicate things, even, when we've got a lot on our minds. Maybe we ought to just keep this thing between you and me for now. I mean, Tracy, she's a nice kid. I think she might be at least a little attached to that talking pet dog. I wouldn't want to give her something new to stress out over."
Inari smirks. "Well, if you want to get there quickly, portals might work better... It still takes an hour or two to fly across the States on a personal jet."
"On the other hand, traveling in armed company might be nice if we're going to face some heavy opposition," the vixen points out.
"It also takes us directly where we want to be.. I think," Tracy notes. "Do we want to be right in the middle of things? We still don't really know what's supposed to happen, do we?"
"Well, there is nothing inherently bad with looking like a dog," Jason notes. "Trappings do not completely define you. But in any event, all right, I won't mention it to her. Not even if she does something to really annoy me."
"Well now! I'd hope your decision-making processes wouldn't depend on that!" Cadena laughs good-naturedly. "I'll try not to get on your bad side, either. Now then..."
"We should probably get back and finish planning before the two start doing each other's hair," Jason notes. "Unless you really want me to look up those addresses still."
Cadena reconsiders. "No ... no, I get the feeling they're probably bulldozed and gone by now. First the deluge, then a plague of monsters ... Palmdale has had more than its share of apocalypses. I can't expect much to stay unchanged. You're right - we should get back to the others. Miss Tracy might have use for the connection - and even though I've got a feeling Palmsdale is our next stop, I can't honestly say as I have the slightest idea what we're supposed to do when we get there, unless Dantech has some conveniently centralized infernal contraption, just waiting for us to blow up and save the world."
Inari shrugs. "In the middle of things is where I generally prefer to be," she says with a smirk. "But it seems to bother Jason... Especially if there's shooting involved."
"Only when you aren't the one doing the shooting I bet," Tracy claims with a smirk.
Jason pushes himself off the table. "When do we ever know what is going on?" he points out as he heads back towards the 'dining room'.
The golden vixen points out, "If I'm shooting something... There's usually something shooting back." Her ears perk up. "It sounds like they're on their way back."
"Should we pretend to be making out then?" Tracy asks before laughing.
Inari laughs, so when the doors swing open, it sounds like the two women have been comparing notes on the men.
"I don't want to know," Jason remarks rather dryly. "The lookups were not terribly useful, so I hpe you two did more productive things ... or at least decided which route you want to take to cross the country? The simplest way is probably hitching a ride with the General."
Cadena pauses a moment in the doorway, casting a look to Tracy as if to check for the all-clear before entering.
"Yes. Do you happen to know what model of air transport Irongrip will be using?" Tracy asks.
The girl waves to Cadena as if he'd been gone for ages and she's welcoming him back.
"V-12 VTOL Valkyries for troups and a ES-4070 VTOL Eagle Security Transport for the big stuff. Not luxury liners by any stretch of the imagination," Jason answers as he walks back to his chair and flops into it.
Cadena takes that as his cue, and returns to packing, organizing, and cleaning up. "When we're clear to leave, I'm going to run the compactor on any waste we leave behind. It won't be proof against forensics picking up on the fact that we've been here, but it should at least slow down any casual discoveries that might put word of our whereabouts on networks where government-connected entities could get highlights of our whereabouts."
Tracy opens her chip wallet and pulls her VR model database, which she then plugs into her bracer. "Okay, I'm guessing we want whichever gives us the best privacy.. so probably the cargo transport right?"
"So ... are you suggesting we crate the canids?" Jason asks, amused. "And yes, the cargo transport would probably have less prying eyes.
A holo representation of the aircraft appears above Tracy's wrist. With a few gestures of her other hand, Tracy changes it to a semi-transparent exploded view.
"Ah!" Cadena remarks. "So, we're abandoning the portal plan? Just as well. They're bound to have a way to get a bearing on such things by now." He meticulously goes around the room with all the care of investigating a crime scene (and methodically scrubbing away the evidence).
"Well, if I can talk to HECATE, I can see about having a portal-based escape route set up," Tracy notes. "Once Jason changes the IFF transponders in the Eagle armor we've got here to Irongrip IDs, we should be safe from being noticed in the bustle - and I think it keeps their guns from shooting at us too, if there's a Friendly Fire failsafe in them."
Inari comments, "We'd have to cut a hole in the back of one of the armor suits to fit my tail in. I am not doing a whole continental flight with my tail stuffed in my pantleg."
"Note to self, forget to change Tracy's," Jason faux-whispers. "I guess I need to pack up things too, and decide on what tools to bring and what to work on during the flight." He pauses that comment only to ask another question, "What's wrong with your tail stuffed down a pantleg?"
"Backpacks," Tracy suggests. "Your tail can go out and up into your backpack okay, can't it?"
The golden vixen looks skeptical. "And when I have to take it off for the flight?"
"By then we should be the only ones in the cargo bay. Which probably won't be pressurized.. so we should bring respirators and stuff," Tracy notes.
"I'll make my camp in a barrel if I have to," Cadena says soberly. "I'm fine with breathing canned air for the duration. Just don't lose me in the luggage."
"I doubt it will be unpressurized," Jason notes.
"We've already tested your ability to pass as human in armor though, Cadena," Tracy points out. "Nobody suspected you were a bipedal talking dog."
Snapping her fingers, Tracy says to Jason, "Oh! Can't you find out if any Irongrip officers collect vintage motorcycles?"
"I appreciate your confidence in me," Cadena says kindly, "but at the construction site, I didn't have to sit down, and I wasn't in a cabin for a couple of hours. Keeping my mask on for no good reason would practically scream, 'I've got something to hide!'"
"Sure, I could find out. Why, though?" Jason asks.
"We could be a special squad escorting his favorite atomic-powered motorcycle that he likes to ride into battle," Tracy suggests.
"That's silly," Jason says.
Cadena shakes his head. "Much obliged for the sporting try, but we need to travel light. If the bike presents any more uncomfortable questions to answer, it's more hazard than help to us."
"But wouldn't a grunt believe an officer is crazy enough to do that?" Tracy asks.
"I can just have Mister Stompy sit on it and protect it like it's his egg," Jason suggests.
The news reporter leans forward. "Federal investigators continue to be perplexed as the Palmdale Murders continue, now on its twentieth reported death. Victims, usually in outdoor environments but sometimes indoors and in one memorable case, within a locked and sealed office complex after hours, have been found mutilated and even partially eaten. Thus far the only traces of the murders have been piles of black goo, which some agents theorize are the remnants of some experimental advanced nanotech weapon, designed to shut down after use. What perplexes officers is that there is thus far no evidence of any connection between the victims, despite the highly advanced nature of such a weapon."
"Well.. you guys come up with a cover story then," Tracy notes. "We've got a sneak suit, a pale skinny dude and two soldiers with tails.."
"Aww," and then Cadena says something muffled that sounds vaguely not-nice. He walks over to turn the volume up. "Fellows, we've got something here."
Inari shakes her head. "If you intend to ride along with General Irongrip, perhaps it would be best to call him and let him know to expect us," she points out. "He seemed to be in some haste to get the expedition together."
"I'll go make the call then," Jason notes and heabs back into the main bat to use the rigged comm system to do just that.
"Something is leaking portals and letting monsters get through, it sounds like," Tracy says of the news report.
The news report cuts away to a map of the incidents. The attacks appear roughly clustered in the area surrounding the Palmdale Weapons Testing Ground, which appears as a 'nature reserve'. The surrounding tracts are marked 'Private Property'.
"Does this have broadcast capture? Who's got the control?" Cadena fumbles about, trying to find a remote.
"Little dragony-critter! Can you record that map?" Cadena calls out to RIU desperately.
RIU beeps distracted from following Jason into the other room! It sounds as if Jason's managed to get through to the General, however.
"No, wait, what'm I thinking?" Cadena suddenly thinks. "If I record with the device, I'm just going to leave an electronic clue as to what I was interested in, and maybe where we were going." He gives up on finding a way to record the broadcast, and just watches the rest of the story play out, even the gratuitous interviews and commentary that don't really add much to the report.
"What's so special about those areas?" Tracy asks. "It's all part of the Rupture Zone isn't it?"
A plain looking woman, elderly around the temples with long brown hair done up at the sides into buns, in a farm dress, addresses the reporter. "It was terrible! I drove up to the ranch and knocked on the door, and when he didn't answer, I looked inside to find his body. His body! We were going to be married..." She bursts into tears.
The reporter nods sympathetically at the woman and asks a few more questions.
"I wonder if the official cover-up will claim an outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria or Spontaneous Human Digestion," Tracy mutters.
Not a moment after muttering, Tracy gets a horrified expression on her face.
Inari smirks. "Faulty Amaranth implants," she theorizes. "The devices gain sentience and cut their own way out."
"I wonder.." Tracy says quietly. "When you're in VR, and you eat VR food, it gradually replaces your real matter with virtual matter, right? What if some VR creatures figure they can do the same thing by eating real people to become more stable in our reality?"
Inari shivers. "What a terrible thought! But the average virtual creature wouldn't last that long," she points out. "Unless you think those piles of goo are bits dropping off, replaced by 'real' matter."
"Why is it happening again at all though?" Tracy asks. "WHITE and BLACK are both gone, so who is driving the Convergence? It is some sort of echo effect because of what happened at the Avatars building?"
"If we could find out where that 'closed-room' murder happened," Cadena ponders, "we could narrow down one of the weak points ... but then, I don't know if that'll do us any good, since lightning might not strike twice ... and I don't have those ... er ... portal-finding powers here."
"We don't know where those portals would go though," Tracy points out. "Maybe there are Light zone ones.."
Jason finally returns from the other room. "Transport arranged. We have an hour, no more than two, to get there. We'll also have the option of 'stealing' an armored transport and explosives if we want. Heheheh," he declares.
Inari perks up. "That sounds interesting," she admits. "I'll call shotgun."
"I call rail-gun then!" Tracy chimes in.
"And it is pressurized, so we don't have to endure the horror of seeing Tracy in a scuba mask," Jason adds.
"All right. I'll round up my equipment and some rations for the trip," Cadena says. "If someone could wipe the security footage here, I'd be much obliged; I wouldn't trust myself with the controls."
"I'll replace with videos of Tracy crying inside her sneaksuit," Jason promises.
"You said you deleted those!" Tracy yelps.
Jason just smiles at Tracy and goes about wiping the security systems.
"See, they're both evil," Tracy whispers to Inari, before getting up to help pack.
The news reporter cuts out in mid-feed. The screen switches to display a simple (in Jason's view) programmed countdown. When the countdown elapses, the systems will complete their wipe and reboot, good as new from the factory.
About mid-way through packing, Cadena bangs his helmet melodramatically against a wall for no particularly good reason ... but then stops right as soon as Tracy walks in, and feigns just having been clumsy. Oops.
"Are you okay, Cadena?" Tracy asks. "Did you find out what you wanted to, assuming Jason got you your data link?"
"Aw, I'm just fine as I've ever been, Miss Tracy," Cadena says, trying to sound cheerful. "Just right as rain. Don't worry yourself over it. We've got a coach to catch. California, here we come!"
"I'm not getting you a ten-gallon hat on the way," Tracy points out.
"I expect you to behave yourself around all those weapons of destruction, body armor, and the dangers ahead, Inari," Jason remarks as he goes to pack up his stuff (again). "Otherwise ... you might traumatize Tracy! Or the interior of the armored transport ..." That last bit was added right as he fled the room to pack.
Cue the vixen pounce.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2011-12-11-journey-to-the-west.htmlWednesday, December 4 - 7 PM Eastern, 4 PM Pacific
Getting aboard the Irongrip expedition proves no great difficulty, with Thomas Whaley meeting them and getting them suited up into uniforms so they'll pass a visual muster. Cadena and Inari's tails and ears would be hard to hide, but luckily the specs call for a team protected against all environments, so they can hide their unusual features in ABC-protective headwear and armor. Cadena's tail fits inside a pantleg; Inari's tail, being fluffier, requires a little adjustment, but Tracy's suggestion of using a backpack works well enough, with the bedroll serving as the 'tail container'.
Though it's possible to commission supersonic transports these days, the ES-4070 Eagle Security Transport is not one of those; its flight takes several hours, with dirigibles meeting them along the way to refuel them en route. This gives them plenty of time for Jason to remove bugs and rig the monitors to show a loop, for them to investigate the transport thoroughly, and to prepare for their escape from the landing zone. Patched through a satellite link, Kimon keeps them updated on the latest news.
One of the forward viewscreens shows a satellite recon view of the landing zone and its surrounding areas, which includes the ranch where the recent murder occurred. Via a secured channel, Cadena has retrieved information about the murders and plotted them, showing a clear epicenter to the incidents-- there are no murders on file within the grounds but then, there are no declared residents either, it being a 'nature preserve' on paper.
"Less than twelve hours ago, Dantech shocked the world by issuing a military Non-Disclosure Enforcement action against an aircar leaving the Avatars LLC premises," a chirpy news anchor reports on one of the channels being monitored by Kimon. "Although Avatars LLC responded by immediately quarantining and possibly evacuating survivors, Vice President of Security Holly Trudeau refused to answer any inquiries from Dantech or Arcadia Development, pleading corporate security privilege, both of which initiated legal proceedings against Avatars LLC to determine which company rightfully holds domain over the aircar, its passengers, and any alleged intellectual property which might have been therein contained."
"Now in its eleventh hour of deliberation, the suit has moved on to the National Cybercorporate Security Court, where our legal analysts predict that Dantech's advanced legal algorithms and treasure trove of patents will give it a decisive advantage..."
Kimon chimes. "Jason, you have a message from Adam Dexter."
"What could he possibly want?" Jason mutters as he rubs the side of his head. Things have been moving too fast for his liking. He's more of the sit in a lair and plot out ten ways to tackle the problem, sort of a guy. "Play message," he instructs Kimon.
The youngish Adam Dexter appears on the viewscreen. "Jason, they just announced a state of power emergency here in Southern California. Seems like one of the nuclear generators in the San Diego Crater is at risk of meltdown and they're going to be severely limiting power to all offices and residences, effective in the next half hour until further notice. Could be a coincidence, but... You did ask for reports on brownouts."
"We've got a bunch of us working on the problem of locating who's drawing all the power, but it seems like it's either the Dantech headquarters up in the New San Francisco arcology, or the old Palmdale site where they built the original park," Adam continues. "Avatars' 'Omega Ranch' should be in that area too, maybe they've got something to do with it? Also, Holly got word to me that Mike is okay, he's recovering from a pretty massive systemic shock. He should be back up and at 'em in a few days. Anyway, drop me a line if we can lend a hand, okay? I owe you guys one for my bro."
Kimon chimes. "Message ends. Do you wish to respond?"
Tracy sits in her jump-seat with her knees hugged to her chest and her eyes hidden behind her mirrorshades until the message is announced. She dips the digital glasses down to pay attention. "So, mom's is still holding off Dantech's sharks enough to keep Mike safe," she notes.
"Or they could be claiming meltdown just so they can divert the power to some place else without raising suspicion," Jason mutters. "Open reply," he instructs. "Adam, the likely point of power draw are any facilities related to the Zeus system, or Dantech headquarters. I don't expect it to be the old theme park area, but checking it out carefully can't hurt. Checking out any of those should be done carefully, really. The people involved aren't afraid to use lethal force and, well, you're all just kids. Don't do anything stupid-risky. Message end."
Kimon chimes. "Message sent via anonymous channels."
Cadena reaches over and taps Tracy. He could have just used his headset com to contact her, but for some reason it seems that he's stowed away his modified K-9 collar rather than wearing it along with his 'disguise.' "Hey, kid. When you've got a moment, I've got something weird to point out. Might be something, might be nothing. Figured you'd know."
"Because I'm weird too?" Tracy responds, but musters a grin. "What is it, Cadena?"
The helmeted and armored heavy trooper next to Jason flips up her visor to reveal the golden vixen's familiar features. "They're expecting a major power drain soon, huh? Enough to warrant an entire nuclear plant? That sounds like trouble," she says.
"Well, it sure isn't a giant weenie roast. With that much power ... they could probably open a portal the size of a city or more," Jason remarks rather grimly.
The armored dog-man (still fully suited up to hide this fact of his person as much as possible) fiddles with the controls, zooming in on the landscape around the Weapons Testing Ground. "I saw this place years ago. It's around Omega Labs. See how most of it's overgrown? What isn't part of weapon testing grounds is all reclaimed for a 'nature preserve' now. But -- look here." He gestures to several farmhouses, well-kept, with dirt ready for spring planting. "Could be there are new owners - I can't tell what's outside the zone - but look how these are old-style homes ... that one's practically new. If it'd been damaged by the Fracture, it would've been rebuilt - new style, rather than insurance forking out the money to make it look vintage. Plus ... there's that shimmer. That's not heat shimmer. Not this time of year. Something's wrong. Plus, let me see if I can get this playback to work...."
"You think the area is being masked by a massive hologram, maybe?" Tracy asks as Cadena fiddles with the controls.
Cadena plays back a bit, fast-forwarding through segments to hit the highlights that he's time-stamped. "This other farmhouse was in that news report. I'm sure of it. Then look...." He fast-forwards, and several black hovercars land and several suited personnel get out. Then, later, a brown truck pulls up, a workman gets out, knocks at the door, looks around as if trying to find someone, then departs. Fast forward. No further activity - the farmstead is deserted. "Looks like the folks in that news report got out of Dodge."
"A shimmer is nothing more than light bending its path due to passing through a material with different indexes of refraction that separates two zones," Jason notes as he leans over to get a better look. "It can be caused by heat changing air density, high humidity, or even a malfunctioning holo projector. But ... that doesn't look like either, frankly. That looks like quantum instability." He rubs his forehead for a minute. "We were thinking that they were going to open a portal ... I think there IS one already open. That's why the excursion. They're sending troops in."
"They're farm houses though," Tracy notes. "Not floating islands or cities full of dark alleys. So what if it's another world but not an artificially generated one?"
"Not every fantasy has floating cities. Haven't you ever played the farming simulators?" Jason asks.
"But... Why?" asks Inari. "What would be the point of invading farmland?"
"Easier to set up a forward outpost on land that isn't heavily defended," Jason points out.
Cadena nods at Jason's comment, offering, "I don't think it's about farmland. It's about geography and remoteness."
"But where is it," Tracy mutters. "Why aren't there farmers, even if it's a game world? Who opened it? Did it just open itself?"
"How would we know?" Jason asks.
"If you're feeling brave we could parachute in and investigate," Jason jokes.
"Have you ever parachuted before?" Tracy asks, then gets a sinking feeling and looks at the transport to see if it is rigged with parachutes already.
"Nope. How hard can it be? Jump, hang onto a really big sack, and hope not to splat," Jason quips.
Sergeant Whaley activates the cabin intercom. "We're coming up on the landing site, ETA 5 minutes. Looks like we're going to be met by Dantech and Department of Defense, judging from what's already parked on the lot." He patches in a satcam feed monitoring the landing zone.
Cadena shrugs. "I'll see if I can get a better look at it, but I reckon that farmhouse right there isn't right. Call it intuition, call it a hunch, call it a little whisper in the back of my crazy messed-up head if you will, but I think either that house isn't really there, or it shouldn't be. Given how close it is to Ground Zero, I figure it'll give us trouble sooner or later."
That little bit of information gets him to sit more upright. "We're going to be met by Dantech? That's our cue to get out as quickly as possible. And ... in case we need a distraction I should check out how secure the car navigation systems are once we land," Jason says.
The plan is, according to the schematic view, for the Irongrip Security forces to touch down on the northwest side of the 'Event Zone', surrounded by the vanes. There, the troops are to assemble and wait for further instructions.
"We've all got helmets," Tracy notes. "It's not like we'll be recognized."
Cadena experiments with the suit's built-in "whisper-LOS" laser com, as he checks his gear, preparing for a quick evac. "Testing."
"Unless they use advanced biometric sensors to check for certain pheromones, body odors, and so on," Jason all-too-cheerfully says. "Tom, how hard would it be to drop us off before reaching the lading zone?"
Inari clicks her visor down. "Received, loud and clear," her voice responds.
"Are we taking the RV then?" Tracy asks, closing her helmet and switching to the LOS system.
Sergeant Thomas Whaley considers. "The General ordered me to give you any and all cooperation you wanted, so if you want to risk it, I can pop the cargo door. We'll be pretty close to the ground, you can use your boot jets if you're fully suited up, or there're parachutes mounted by the ramp."
"Given it has most of our gear stowed in it I think, probably," Jason notes.
"Or if you folks want to continue on, I could jump out here and check things out," Jason offers.
"Does it have jump jets too?" Tracy asks. "Otherwise I'll jump on my own, I think."
Cadena says, "If'n you're jumping, I'll go with you." He practices targeting a burst to Jason alone using the communicator. "That farmhouse is the one I couldn't find online."
"If you're taking the transport, I'll fake engine trouble and touch down," Sergeant Thomas Whaley adds. "Not going to be safe for me to bring an empty cargo hold to the party, if we're lucky, they'll be tightly enough pressed on time they'll want to proceed without it."
"Honestly, I think we're less likely to be captured if we evac now," Jason says, "And it gives us a chance to do some scouting. I'm be a bit concerned if we fake engine toruble. Someone might find that suspicious. I know I would. But I'm paranoid."
"Show me how to operate the boot jets, and I'm ready to bail," Cadena offers, "but I think I'll grab a parachute as backup."
Inari considers. "Did you install a remote control in the APC?" she asks of Jason.
"Theoretically did. Military gear is a bit harder to modify. You think they don't want people messing with it," Jason remarks dryly. "If I got it right it should be controllable. If I didn't, it's a nice law ornament for a hillbilly."
"I hope these things are automated, and nobody is watching us," Tracy says as she reads the instructions on a parachute before strapping into it.
Inari nods. "If we get off now, then we can use the APC as a distraction," she says.
Cadena checks the handy little icon instructions on his suit. "Parachute might increase chances we're spotted. Am I crazy for suggesting Tracy hitch a ride on one of us with boot jets? Hook her up with carabineers? Could be a rough landing, though."
"It would be extremely awkward to carry Tracy down, but it is theoretically possible," Jason says.
"Jason, have you rigged the APC to feed you audio and video already?" Tracy thinks to ask, before turning her helmet towards Cadena. With the visor down, her expression is hidden. "If I'm going to be carried down, I'll keep the parachute as a backup.. just in case."
"Kind of like tandem sky diving, I guess. I also bet the only person here with real sky diving experience is Miss Goldentail," Jason quips.
"Awkward, I can handle," Cadena says, "but I don't have the expertise to judge life-threatening, which is my concern." He moves toward the hatch. "Just don't know if anyone's watching out there, and willing to shoot."
Inari smirks unseen in her helmet. Her body language just radiates smugness. "Of course! I passed with 'flying' colors. If Tracy wants a lift..."
Sergeant Thomas Whaley calls from the pilot's cabin, "Emergency cargo door drop lever's by the parachutes. Give me a heads up if you want to change course, otherwise I'm following the flight plan." Through the tiny window in the cargo door, they can see the forest passing beneath with appalling speed.
"Okay, at least if Inari lands on me she won't be as heavy," Tracy notes, and heads over towards the armored vixen.
"I theoretically can work the APC from remote, yes. How it works in practice remains to be seen. Remember, there is instability in the area to contend with," Jason points out as he unhooks the four-point harness holding him in his seat and rises. "So, looks like the group vote is to plummet to our dea ... I mean jump out," he says. "Still, worst case is we splat. Better than Dantech brain-diddling us."
"I just wanted to know if you could have it record whatever gets said out at the landing site, so we know what they're going to do once they get organized - and maybe who is in charge," Tracy notes to Jason.
"Heads up!" Cadena says. "I've got the coordinates for our drop. The field here - wide open area for a wide margin of error in landing, and a nearby tree-line for us to seek cover."
"Oh, that. I probably could get Kimon to do that from distance and just relay it back to us later in case I can't get a direct link," Jason agrees.
Sergeant Thomas Whaley says over the intercom, "Give me a countdown when you're going to pop it. Cargo door dropping open will cause a bit of turbulence for us."
"So, you won't drop me, right?" Tracy whispers to Inari by touching helmets.
Inari gets in position to drop with Tracy hugged up in her arms, facing toward the vixen. If it weren't for the armor, it might look a bit overly familiar, but it's also more effective for keeping them both together and allowing the parachute (if activated) to expand outward unchecked. "Have you done anything I should drop you for?" comes her amused reply.
"Inari should go first," Cadena says, taking position by the hatch and bracing himself to jump. "If there are snipers, they're more likely to react to the second or third one coming down, than to be quick enough to hit the first, and Inari's got an unarmored passenger."
"Kimon, keep a constant record of the feed from the APC is you can. We may need it later," Jason relays to his home 'computer. It's now that he heads towards the rear hatch to prepare to jump out. "Also, if any of you have the urge to scream like a five year old girl, myself included, I ask that we each remember to turn off our comms before screaming, eh?" Jason suggests. To Cadena's comment, he adds, "I'll go last since I have probably the heaviest armor on, even if it is home-made."
"No, of course not," Tracy claims, as she clings to Inari. At least I know how to recover from a fall, she thinks.
"Ready for airdrop!" Cadena calls over the channel, as he watches the comsat monitor to compare the craft's current position to the coordinates it's passing over. "Opening hatch in ... 10 ... 9 ... 8 ..."
Sergeant Thomas Whaley acknowledges, straightening the VTOL out so that they won't have to compensate for tilt on top of everything else. "The General says 'Go with the Stars.' Whatever that means!"
"... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ..." Cadena pulls the lever. "Hatch open. GO GO GO GO!" He grips the bar beside the hatch door, and reaches out to assist Inari and Tracy.
CLANK! The cargo door drops open precipitously, giving a full view of the countryside rushing by. The forest thins out as it gives way to a wide open field.
Inari breaks into a run, then leaps out into empty air!
Cadena remembers to mute his com, then leaps out. Not that anyone can hear him, but, "Yeeeeeeee-HAWWWWWWWWW!"
"This doesn't mean I'm falling for you!" Tracy calls out, it being the only clever potential last words she could come up with on short notice.
"Once more unto the breach! Here's hoping I don't pretend to be a lawn dart," Jason says. He takes a few steps back, then runs full speed out of the hatch. On the edge of the doorway, he leaps out into nothingness, arms folded in on his sides. Drop a bit to clear the ship ... then activate the jets.
Inari and Tracy spin head over tail, and then the vixen spikes the air with boot jets, killing their rotation. Once they're stable, she brakes periodically with the boot jets to slow their descent.
Cadena's boot jets work, just like it's straight out of the manual, and he touches down roughly - but serviceably - in the field. He does a controlled drop and roll to help absorb the shock of the landing, then pulls himself back up, quickly surveying the surrounding area for any reactions from the locals.
"Tell me when to let go," Tracy tells Inari. "I can land on my from about ten feet up."
After a moment of panic when his rebuilt boots don't ignite quite on cue, they fire to life and all the various stabilizers and gyros in his armor come to life! So ... he can't quite help himself and rockets past Inari and Tracy ... only to break so much that they pass him. His jets cut out again and he dives right past them again He spins around, waves at them, then spins again and surges downward. Showoff. He's making it look easy. But then again when your armor has servo-controlled baffle panels for flight control and stabilization, it sort of helps! When the ground closes in all his upper baffles spread, flipping him such that his feet are straight down and his rockets fire, countering all the momentum he build on the way down!
The ES-4070 VTOL transport wobbles a bit as it diminishes over the horizon, leaving them alone in the forest. There seems to be a farmhouse to the west, not far from this field, and due northwest should be the intended landing zone.
"Hey, Top Gun," Cadena says, turning his communicator system back on. "Awfully brave of you to make a spectacle to draw away any enemy fire, but try not to overdo it, eh?"
"Hey, this is the second field test I've done with the gear. Give me a break," Jason retorts into the comm.
Inari murmurs to Tracy, "Don't worry, I've..." One last brake and then they're falling the last ten feet, when Tracy breaks free to land on her own. Startled, the vixen falls backward; what would have been a perfect boot jet brake turns instead into a slide that gouges a rut through the meadow. "Frotz!" curses the vixen.
The vixen winces as she struggles up. "Ow!"
Tracy rolls to her own landing with less issue, then freezes when she sees Inari's less than graceful touchdown. "Uh-oh," she mutters, then switches on her comm and asks, "Are you okay, Inari?"
Cadena gets up from his own landing, and rushes over toward Inari.
Jason lands on his feet with a thump, moving at a speed about equal to having jumped off a four-foot wall. "Okay, is ever ... " he starts to ask but Inari's 'ow' stops him. He's running for Inari less than a second later.
The golden vixen manages to get to her feet, her visor mirroring the afternoon sunlight. "I'm... okay. I'll be fine," she says.
"Don't move!" Cadena urges Inari as he skids to the ground by her side. "The rigid armor might help to reduce pressure on ..." He shakes his head. "I'm going to need to take a look at that. We need to get to cover. There's no good way to do this. Kid! I need your help over here."
Sergeant Whaley's voice crackles on the Irongrip communication frequency. "Got the cargo door back up. Some guy who sounds like Jason called up and asked about the bobble in my flight trajectory, told him that some idiot didn't secure the cargo door properly, but I was able to get it back in place and we haven't lost any cargo. He seemed to buy it. Good luck down there."
"I'll carry her to the tree line," Jason says as he comes up behind Cadena. "Check her there."
Inari hisses. "Really, you don't have to baby me," she complain. "It was just a bruise."
"What, me?" Tracy asks, looking around. "Kid? Really? What do you need?" she asks, coming over.
Cadena nods, and gets his med kit ready. "It might just be a bruise, but we need to check, just to be sure. Standard procedure, ma'am."
"I don't care if it is just a bruise, it's getting checked," Jason insists and actually picks Inari up into his arms and off her feet. "And yes, I know you could kick my butt around the planet and probably on the moon too. I don't care. Right now all I care about is that you really are okay," he adds in an unusually firm tone of voice for him.
The vixen pauses, then relaxes, letting Jason carry her for a change. "I... Thanks, Jason," she whispers, off the comm so that only he can hear it.
As they head for the treeline, Cadena rushes alongside, using a scanning device. "Legs are fine, actually, amazingly enough. But ... criminy, ma'am, how do you not make a fuss? Your left shoulder's been dislocated! And that's a fracture!"
The mini-dragon zips around them worriedly, hovering over its master's shoulder. Eep!
"I'm sorry!" is all Tracy can say as she stays out of smacking range.
Inari murmurs, "It's just a bruise... The show must go on."
"You're not indestructible," Jason says as he removes his helmet. "And when will you learn that you are more important than the show?" he adds. After he reaches up to pat RIU, he asks Cadena, "What do we do about her shoulder?"
They gather under the treeline, with Jason taking off Inari's armor so that Cadena can get to and treat the injuries. The golden vixen looks rather pale in the ears. In the forest, wild things twitter and hoot, cautious around the newcomers.
"As tough as you are, ma'am, I'm sure the show will go on - and you along with it, just like ever," Cadena says, "but first things first. Ground's clear over here. Kid, I need help with the armor so I can get to the shoulder, while I've got to get my hands free here. My armor isn't made for field surgery, and I can't crouch down right while my tail is making me walk funny."
"So.." Tracy says, then just assumes Cadena means he needs help with his armor, since Jason is already working on Inari's. She tries to get Cadena's heavy gloves off.
Inari is wearing her sneaksuit underneath the armor, since it's light and flexible enough to be a good undersuit. Beneath that, she's furred but there's a big and obvious purple bruise beneath the weave of her golden fur.
Cadena doesn't argue over the particulars, and once he's got his hands free, and he's got a better range of mobility, he throws down a field roll, and sets up shop next to Inari, getting out the items he needs from his med kit. "Here. Bite on this," he says, as he hands Inari a leather strap. "This is going to hurt like the devil - no lie."
"It's okay to admit you need help to friends," Jason whispers in Inari's ear as he undoes the banding and quick-release anchors that hold Inari's armor together.
While everyone else deals with Inari's injuries, Tracy looks around to see if there are any imminent threats. "Sounded like Jason Zero is out there," she notes. "And in charge of some aspect of whatever is happening."
"I'm sure he is. Bastard. Why did I ever have to be such a jerk when I was younger," Jason complains.
"OW!" Inari bites the strap, cutting nearly through it. Those are some impressively sharp teeth.
"Marvels of modern medicine," Cadena murmurs, as he tends to the arm. "All right, this is for the swelling. Good thing we got to this right away. Now, that feeling in your right arm - I wasn't just jabbing it for fun - is from the knitting action. I'm going to leave this splint on for a while just to be sure, and I'll want you to be careful with it. The bruise coloration is going to stay, however, because of the coagulation of the ruptured capillaries...."
"Tracy, can you find us defendable cover? There is something large heading this way. Not armored ... but, worrying," Jason suddenly announces to the group after several seconds of staring in the distance. "RIU, do you feel comfortable being an advance scout and checking out what is heading this way?"
The miniature dragon eebles to Jason! Something it can do! It zips up into the deeper forest, staying in the branches and using the leaves for camouflage.
"Can you tell which direction it's coming from?" Tracy asks, as she scans.. the trees. Can't haul Inari up a tree.. even if she was fine, 'treeing the fox' would just be in bad taste, she thinks. There's the farmhouse, but that involves crossing open ground..
"It's coming from the direction of the farmhouse. West," Jason answers.
Taking stock of the area, there's a boulder a little to the north, and some rocks to the south, and any number of trees behind which to shelter. The farmhouse is just barely visible to the west, with a well nearby and a stretch of ploughed land.
"Okay.. RIU and I can probably distract it," Tracy suggests. "You get Inari to the big rock to the north, and we'll get the bogey to follow us to the pile to the south."
"Make sure you're armed," Jason says to Tracy. He turns away from staring at the Farmhouse and heads back to Inari and Cadena.
"Careful!" Cadena says. "The bone-knitting is still in process. We don't want to jostle Miss Inari, or it could set wrong."
"That's why I'll be with RIU!" Tracy points out.. but also draws her sidearm instead of the taser before sneaking west through the trees.
"That's why they're buying us time, so we can move her safely," Jason points out to Cadena. Make sure her arm is secure. I'll carry her. He also gives Inari a look. "No arguing," he says.
Cadena bites down any further concerns he might have, and does his best to prep Inari to minimize the damage that might be done in the emergency move.
Into the comm, Jason says, "Tracy, the creature is a mangled bear of some kind; horribly mutilated as if having passed through a portal and began to break down, then went back."
Inari mutters between gritted teeth, "I feel naked when we have a fight coming on."
"You can fight when you're well. Right now you need to heal," Jason says.
As Tracy sneaks through the trees, she comes into line of sight of the thing. It looks like a giant black bear, but it's been half melted and is running amok, crazed with pain. "RRRR!" it growls. It doesn't see her, though.
"So, you're saying I shouldn't try talking to it.." Tracy notes, and thinks of that list of murders scattered around the area.
The half-melted bear snuffles around, glaring through reddened eyes at the forest.
It catches a scent... Perfume? It rears up and turns toward Tracy, lumbering toward her!
"It would have to be the kind that can climb trees," Tracy mutters.
The beast advances toward the perfume... But then its attention is caught by wild rustling in the leaves. Could its quarry be hiding in the branches/
"It's not melting," Tracy notes over the comm. "It's in bad shape, but there's no black smoke or anything."
Taking a chance while the bear is distracted, Tracy runs and leaps up into the tree on the bear's blind side, climbing up to try and get above it.
The bear, utterly focused on RIU's distraction of leaves, completely misses Tracy's leap!
Instead, it continues to lumber toward the tree where RIU is distracting it by vibrating leaves rapidly. From up close, Jason can make out the telltale signs of a creature that has been partially melted by quantum instability... and now he can see it is in fact not dissolving-- that means it's not a bear from a simulation world. But what can that mean?
The golden vixen winces as Cadena continues his medical procedures. "Will I be able to play the guitar after this?" she mutters, jesting.
"I wonder if that bear is the result of some sort of stabilization experiment," Jason muses from where he remains crouched by Inari and Cadena. "RIU, think you could lure it away from all of us? Send if off deeper in to 'preserve'?"
The minidragon beeps! acknowledgement.
"Why, sure, ma'am," Cadena says quietly, as he works on Inari's arm, trying not to let the sounds of the nearby bear distract him from his work. "Maybe you could even teach me."
As RIU flits toward the next tree, sunlight catches off its metallic hide! The bear glimpses this and realizes... The source of the tantalizing perfume isn't this noisy thing, whatever it is! It turns around, sniffing at the air. Hmm. It went... This way.
The golden vixen smirks. "I probably could show you a few riffs." She squeezes Jason's hand, hanging onto him with her right hand.
Now that's she on a solid branch, Tracy hurries to shed her outer, Irongrip Security jumpsuit so that she can use the sneaksuit if needed. When she sees the bear turning its attention her way, she prepares to drop the jumpsuit as a distraction.
With a bit of contorting, Tracy gets the jumpsuit off and hangs it from a lower branch. Then she activates the camoflage of her sneaksuit, draws her taser.. and waits for the curious bear to come into range.
"You're going to be fine," Jason says to Inari, letting his link concentration fade for the moment. "We've pulled you from worse situations, after all. And the horror, someone has to actually take care of you for a little bit." Maybe he's just trying to distract her from the current moment by getting her to poke him for comments!
"You're not being annoying enough, RIU. Shock it's fanny!" Jason relays to the little dragon.
its, not it's
The golden vixen smirks. "So what are we fighting out there anyway? I hear it growling, so I guess it's some kind of animal."
"A bear that looks like it went through a flesh-pudding plant. A normal bear too, but melted like a simulation would. Very odd," Jason explains.
Cadena blinks. "Is it ... still melting? Can we just wait it out?" he asks, while still going about his work, not daring to look away.
"No, it isn't," Jason admits.
"That may explain the enviro-suits," Tracy comments.
KerZAAAP! RIU unleashes a powerful, bright blue zap of electricity! The bear is briefly stunned, roaring in pain.
"Curse it," Cadena whispers. "Doggy's batteries are all charged up. Wasn't paying attention. This isn't really Palmdale. At least, not entirely."
The bear shakes off the electricity, then turns and charges after RIU! It rears up surprisingly tall, trying to grab the minidragon out of the air.
In the tree, Tracy looks at her handheld taser and thinks maybe it won't work on the bear..
The minidragon squeaks a plaintive distress call to its master as it gets caught!
"Dammit, RIU is in trouble. I have to go. Sorry, Inari," Jason says to his injured friend.
"Hey you great outpouring of a diseased ursine's loins, why don't you fight someone more your size?" Jason shouts as he marches right out to try and get the bear's attention. And if that doesn't, the lightning-bolt up the bum should! He raises his right hand and unleashes a blast of electrical energy from his gauntlet!
ZAP! The strike lands on thick matted fur, but doesn't seem to have injured the bear-- still, it turns and roars at the newcomer, displeased! It flings the small metal insect-like thing at Jason, perhaps hoping that RIU will shock the fox-armored man on contact.
The mini-dragon eeeees as it gets flung! It shakes its head, bringing its dynamic motion sensors back online quickly, then spreads its wings out to stabilize itself. PAF! It hovers in the air next to Jason. This means war!
With the bear focused on the biggest annoyance around, Tracy climbs down from the tree with camouflage still running. Maybe if it charges Jason, she'll be close enough to use her pistol to some effect. The rail-launcher is mostly silent, after all.
"I've lost all sympathy, you threw my dragon!" Jason complains. He raises his hand to blast the bear ... and RIU's maw glows blue too!
Lightning plays across the melted bear, redoubled by RIU helicing and firing off a super-charged shot! The bear sizzles, flesh crisping (and let's face it, burnt ursine doesn't actually smell good when it's mixed with melted fur) and writhing in pain.
Tracy briefly considers her options, then loads an explosive bolt and fires on the bear, hoping to end its misery quickly.
The explosive bolt smacks the bear on top of already heavily scarred flesh! It disappears briefly behind a haze of smoke and flames, but the loud painful roaring suggests that it's not out for the count yet.
"Great.. more noise," Tracy mutters.
"Enough already," Jason growls and opens fire on the bear again, along with RIU!
"All right. I think that should be about it," Cadena says, looking over his handiwork. "This should numb the pain for a bit, but you might not feel it if you're putting too much pressure on your arm. I'm going to keep it splinted. Now, I want to make sure you still have feeling in your left hand. Can you feel this?" He lightly prods the index finger.
The onboard power indiciator flashes yellow at Jason, warning him that he's low on power! But the results are well over the top... The bear's skeleton is briefly visible as lightning bolts light up the cloud of smoke and debris, and then it collapses, a mass of charred flesh and cinders.
Inari nods to Cadena. She stretches her fingers, splaying them one by one, showing tiny little clawtips, then retracting them. "Thanks, doc!" she says.
"Mmm. And just in time!" Cadena notes. "Smells like dinner's ready."
"Want me to check the doors on the house?" Tracy asks. "There's no way anyone in there missed this commotion."
"All right. Looks like I need to recharge. I really should augment the power systems," Jason says into his comm. "And ... there is movement in the house. My armor is picking it up in the thermal range sensors. I guess we had better go see who it is ... and I need to borrow their power outlets."
"Doc" Cadena helps Inari up, and carefully puts away his supplies and the field roll, and puts his missing armor pieces back on, just in case the locals might take issue with his excessively hairy features underneath the security gear. He doesn't bother trying to tuck away the tail, however, as that would just be too much of a hassle at this point if he hopes to catch up with the others.
The golden vixen re-suits up, looking and feeling visibly happier about having her armor on, and her weapons to hand. She rotates her left shoulder-- feels good as new!
"Don't operate any heavy equipment or motorized vehicles for the next few hours," Cadena advises, as he approaches the house.
"Oh, like I listen to that kind of medical advice," the golden vixen snorts. She moves up, looking around for Jason.
Jason is still standing between the trees and eying the fried bear. Every now and then he glances towards the house.
"I see some sort of interface line," Tracy reports as she gets closer to the farmhouse. "The heat shimmer effect and.. black smoke, but it's on the other side of the interface - like it's more real on that side than this side."
Cadena advances at first haltingly toward the house, but now that he's away from the rock and the others, his gait is far more casual. He looks about, and reaches up to brush a gauntleted hand against a low-hanging branch of a tree as he passes under it. He continues on.
There's definitely someone moving around in the house. The windows have been shuttered... There are bear claw marks on the shutters; whomever bought the house armored ceramic shutters made a very wise purchase.
The dog-man comes to a sudden halt just as he's about to pass out from underneath the low-hanging boughs of the old tree. "No, wait," he mutters. He shakes his head. "Who ... what...."
"Cadena, are you having another personality shift?" Tracy asks over the comm. "What do we do about the barrier? It could be what melted the bear."
"Unless one of y'all has a reason against it," Cadena mutters over the communications band, "I'm going to mosey on around the house and come up to the front door to knock. Any sniper holed up in there would've done something by now - or at least had the sense not to be strolling around right now."
Inari comes up next to Tracy and briefly (but visibly) entertains thoughts of pushing Tracy forward.
"I ... amend that statement," Cadena suddenly says, and then he turns around. "Hey, Kid, you still out here hiding? I got some bad news. I'm not the right one to make much sense of it, I admit. But ... uh ... 'Sparky' has some stuff to share with us. Don't go walking through that wall. It'll goo you."
RIU nests on Jason's shoulder. It's still mostly charged, though the mini-dragon wouldn't say no to a recharge.
"Sparky?" Tracy asks.
"So.. who is least likely to get shot at if we try to communicate?" Tracy asks.
"Yeah. Sparky ... Whitey ..." Cadena flails his hands. "Listen, Kid, it's hard to explain, but I'm out of my element here. But ... okay, you know how those virtual people, come into the real world, they start to melt down into goo? Well ... it's like this place is 'more real' than our world, for all the sense that makes. If we go in there, we start to melt down into goo."
"I see the person now," Tracy says, noticing the movement behind the blinds.
Jason shakes his head and walks slowly towards the house now, his sensors scanning everything they can as they go.
"Oh ... crud," Cadena says, as his shoulders slump while he's looking at the house. His helmet hides his expression, but there's something about the tone of his voice that seems as if he was going to say something else, but just couldn't.
"Well, the person in there is probably right to be frightened, so.. If we can't cross the barrier, we have to get them out here to talk to us," Tracy points out.
"Who's out there!" barks a voice from inside. "Show yourself! I've got you under cover!"
Cadena staggers back, bumping into the tree. "It can't be. No. It can't be." He stumbles, then steps back forward, raising his shaking hands.
"That depends on who we're talking to," Jason calls back towards the house.
"Anyone want to give me a hint on whether I should drop the camo or not?" Tracy asks. "I've only got a few minutes of it in this suit.."
"Conserve your power," Jason suggests.
"First that bear, now a... Some kinda mutt? Didn't look right for a dog, but then, the bear didn't either," the voice grumbles to itself. The shutters open to reveal a grizzled-looking farmer, perhaps in his fourties. He's holding a service revolver, and his vision pans across to the man in military armor talking through an amplifier. "The name's Elijah. Elijah Caine, and this is my property you're on, stranger."
Inari decides not to push Tracy into the border; instead she fades back behind the tree for cover, readying her rifle in case it comes to shooting.
"We're here trying to figure out exactly what is going on," Jason replies to the man. "I'm Jason. The gun isn't necessary. Can you tell us exactly what happened here?"
Tracy turns off the sneaksuit camouflage, and pulls back her hood and steps away from the tree.
"We don't mean no harm, Mister Caine," the armored dog-man says. "We got that bear. It won't be bothering you or anyone anymore. Sorry we didn't call first. I tried to contact you, but I couldn't get through. Don't rightly know just why, but I'm starting to get some ideas."
The man is clearly a trained police from the way he handles his gun with authority. He lowers his revolver but keeps it close to hand. "You're pretty heavily armored for travelin' around," he observes. "I don't recognize the outfit though. Had a bear sniffing around, I battened down the hatches is all."
"What year is it?" Jason asks the man. An odd question, sure ... but the answer may be interesting.
"Should we ask him where he thinks he is, too?" Tracy asks Jason.
"I served my time in the Mojave rangers, myself, back in the 30s," Elijah Caine says. "What year-- huh? You confused or something? It's 2043. Don'tcha have a sat-synched chronometer in that fancy suit o' yours?"
"Mojave Rangers?" Cadena asks. "You don't say. You didn't happen to serve under Colonel 'Irongizzard' Tycho, did you?"
"Of course, but I wanted to see what year you believed it was," Jason notes as he heads closer to the interface. "There is a bit of a problem here, Mister Caine. You're on the other side of an interface. An unstable barrier where things tend to break down if they pass through. The bear was one victim of it,"
"Yeah! I don't remember any 'dog' soldiers though," Elijah says with a laugh. "Plenty of dogsbodies though."
The farmer sizes up the situation. "Haven't noticed anything, but if there's somethin' like that out there, wasn't my fault," he says. "What do you want me to do about it?"
"Cadena.. you know this guy?" Tracy asks the canine.
Jason looks for a rock that he can pick up and toss through.
There's no shortage of rocks, dirt clods, and the like, this being a forest in winter.
Jason grabs one of the numerous rocks and tosses, underhand, through the interface zone.
"I reckon I do, Miss Tracy," Cadena says. "I think I'm carrying something of his. I didn't realize it could've happened back when ... well, from his point of view, only a little while ago. Sparky can't give me a straight answer on what happens - to me or to him - if I try to give it back to him. And this is the sort of thing where ... I don't get a second try if I guess wrong."
Sizzle! The rock begins to slowly melt into igneous slag. The farmer tenses as Jason throws the rock, but then whistles as he observes this. "That ain't natural at all," he says. "Would explain what happened to the bear."
"Exactly. Now, can you try tossing something through from your side?" Jason asks.
"Make sure it's nothing you want back anytime soon," Cadena adds in quickly. "A rock'd do nicely."
Elijah looks around the room, then reaches for a bottle. He takes a slug from it, then observes the remaining inch of brownish fluid left in it. "Here, catch, dogsbody!" He arcs it toward Cadena.
"Knew you were gonna do that," Cadena mutters, as he deftly catches it in mid-air, without losing a drop.
"You really need to work on your explanations for things, Cadena," Tracy points out.
"Jameson Whiskey," Cadena says, looking at the bottle, though the label has already fallen off. "Five years old. Not bad tipple, as the stuff goes. It'll take you a while before you can work your way down to the real rotgut. Not that I'd recommend it - or that you'd listen to me regardless."
"Well, my explanation is that Cadena and this guy are the same person," Jason remarks to Tracy.
Elijah looks at Cadena oddly. "Yeah, it ain't bad stuff," he agrees. "Good engine starter fluid in the morning."
"Touching down at the landing zone," Thomas Whaley's voice reports over the comm. "The other birds are down already, we're going to get started unloading cargo. Hope you made your landing A-okay. Over and out."
"Yeah, and you broke this one open on account of Ms. Wheatley," Cadena mutters. He holds the bottle up where the others can see it. There's no sign of any black smoke coming off of it. He doesn't go so far as to pull his helmet off and drink it, however - never mind if he's already been pegged for a dog-soldier. "I need to talk to you about that. There's a reason why we asked you about the year. Something happened to you ... recently - and it wasn't just your bank account what got cleared out."
Elijah goes silent. Dead silent.
"We're fine. The situation is ... rather odd. I highly recommend not going through any 'interfaces' here if you value staying in one piece," Jason replies through the comm to Thomas.
Tracy is also silent, looking from Cadena back to the old soldier. Then she pokes Jason in the shoulders, and asks, "Are you messing with me?"
Jason looks over his shoulder. "Normally, yes. Right now, no," he answers honestly.
"Okay, who are you?" Elijah asks after a long pause. "Why do I feel like I know you somehow?"
"So.. so.. so.." Tracy says, rubbing her forehead. "That barrier isn't between us and another reality, but between us and another time? And.. how is Cadena this guy?"
"Or we're looking at overlapping worlds. Same place, just in a different dimension, a mirror," Jason says and shrugs.
"You know me," Cadena says, "because somehow you got a lot of what makes you ripped out of your noggin. And I'm carrying it up here." He reaches up with one hand and taps his forehead. "It's been longer than you realize. I'll tell you one thing - Sabrina's still around, still in Palmdale even, still up to her old games, but the years have not been kind to her. The Germans have a word for taking pleasure in that but ... eh ... I forget."
"Schadenfreude, but assuming I choose to believe you for a minute, why are you here on my land?" Elijah replies.
Inari whispers to Jason over the comm, "I'm guessing taking a shot would be the wrong tactical decision to make just now."
"Yeeeaah, that would be quite the mistake right about now," Jason agrees in the comm.
The golden vixen mutters All dressed up and nothing to shoot.
"Well, for starters, that bear and several other ugly things like it have been tearing folks up in these here parts - Sabrina's new 'fiance' among them, if you believe the news reports," Cadena drawls. "Personally, I wouldn't put it past her to be playing 'black widow' and using it as a cover. But I digress. I wanted to find out what happened to you. I didn't expect you'd actually be here, talking to us, and not in a drooling vegetable state or in a cryo chamber somewhere. It kind of ... forces me to reconsider my assumptions. I hate doing that. I've been doing that way too much lately."
Zahnrad looks at Tracy for a moment.
Jason looks at Tracy for a moment.
"I have no idea what they're on about," Tracy admits. "Who is Sabrina? For that matter, just who is Cadena?"
The farmer leans out and stares at Cadena. "Build's wrong... You don't look like me, however many years it's been. What happened to you... Me?"
"That big white tail's kind of a giveaway, too," Caine adds.
"Cadena is secretly an old guy, transformed, and has been watching over you. I hope you didn't change clothes in front of him," Jason jokes.
"You got your mind transplanted in this body," Cadena says matter-of-factly. "This creature ... don't rightly know how to explain it, but it has 'extra storage space' in its noggin. Carrying along at least one other bundle of memories that wakes up every now and then. I've had trouble keeping count. But I ... I mean, you recently kind of got back control. Aw, heck, it sounds nuts no matter how I put it. Listen, you are you. But this ... thing that's talking to you, has a bunch of your stolen memories. That's the best I can figure, and it's subject to revision the next time someone corrects me."
Over the comm, there's the humdrum noise of soldiers unloading a transport. Someone shouts, "Hurry it up! Our window opens in half an hour. I want that transport fully loaded and ready to go by then!"
"Folks, we have thirty minutes to decide what we're doing here. Me, I think I'm going to go try to sabotage their systems. If I can get to one of those vanes I can probably cause some chaos," Jason tells the others.
The farmer pauses. "Stolen memories... Okay. So, am I somehow in the future, and I'm going to rubber-band back into my proper time and live a right an' proper life, now that you've given me a morsel o' good advice on what to do?" He raises an eyebrow. "Don't suppose you could see fit to give me some winnin' stock tips too?"
"Wait.. should we sabotage stuff before we know what's actually going on?" Tracy asks Jason. "I mean.. could you set up a remote-controlled sabotage device, instead?"
"Somehow I don't like giving the chance of wrecking the world a chance, you know? This is Andrei we're taling about. He doesn't care; he'll do whatever he wants if it'll advance his goals," Jason says ... and so starts walking north.
"I ... well, heck," Cadena says. "If this is a time travel thing, we've already messed with the continuum, and somehow haven't blown ourselves to smithereens. All I know is, the only thing I can do is try to give you back your memories - and, sorry, but they aren't all happy ones. No, you don't get even with Sabrina. Not even sure if you'll get a chance now. But you do get to save a few people. Trouble is, you've got to do something about your heart. See a DOCTOR, for crying out loud, now and again. You've got insurance."
The heat shimmering effect is getting worse, as if the farm is somehow receding into the distance. "My... heart. Got it," Elijah says, taking that a bit more seriously. "I wish I could give you something back, but I think anything I know, you do too."
Jason stops mid-step. "Looks like this interface between us and that house is beginning to face," Jason tells the other. "Aaand ... now it's collapsing."
"Good.. talking to the past is creepy and probably more dangerous than anything else going on," Tracy says. "I want to know what's in that hangar. Have any actual orders or anything been given that Kimon has heard?"
Cadena sputters out all the "important" tips he can think of. Stocks? Forget it. No such get-rich-quick details seem to have stuck in his head. It's a montage of "things that were really bad ideas - don't do them!" and "talk to so-and-so while you get the chance, because he's going to be in a car crash in a year," and "stop being a pack-rat and give the old laptop to your niece - maybe she'll get a head start and get a real job," etc.
Elijah grumps. "You couldn't remember any stock tips while you were at it?" As the bubble distortion gets worse, however, he salutes. "Self... It's been a long road to get to where you are. I just hope... Aw, heck. Thanks, and I'll see you in the mirror when I get there." He cracks a smile.
"One more thing - write this down. Call this number - " Cadena rattles a number. "Call. Ask for Penny. Tell her to NOT go to the theater on Christmas 2042. Tell her that you know about you're a friend of her father, and if she doesn't believe you, you know about the crystal goblet on the mantle. Leave it cryptic. Just do it!"
"Five-five-..." Elijah seems to be repeating the number back, but by then he fades to imperceptibility... and all that's left is the same farmhouse, but twenty years older. Shutters hang open to the elements, filled with cobwebs, and a thin layer of grime covers everything.
"Want to check out the farmhouse?" Jason asks as he looks over at the derelict building. "We don't have much time."
"This is like a reverse ghost story," Tracy mutters, and looks to Cadena. "Are you alright?"
"Whatever I was supposed to do," Cadena says grimly, "I think I blew it. And if he was in some parallel timeline ... well, we'll never get to know how it turns out anyway. I don't believe in time travel anyhow." He looks the bottle over. "This is good stuff, though." He digs through his medpack and finds a piece of sealing plastic that he jams over the neck, then puts the bottle in his satchel. "Could be a bottle of magic booze. Might come in handy somehow."
Over the comm: "Attention! Stand by for review." The cameras on the ES-4070 transport pick up an older man in Space Force blues, wearing all sorts of decorations. He addresses the troops. "Gentlemen, you are gathered here for a monumental occasion. While it must be kept secret for now, someday it will be as famed as the moment when Armstrong stepped onto the Moon. Today, we will finally demonstrate... The Ouroboros Project!" Clapping from the assembled dignitaries.
"Folks, do what you need to here. I have a project to shut down, no matter the cost," Jason says into the comm. He starts to head in a hurry towards the southern vane.
Cadena strolls up to the door, and punches in a security code, without looking like he's expecting much. "Not going to be anything here. Not anymore. This could be a fall-back position if things go sour, though and we need a place to hide out."
"We still don't know what it all is!" Tracy notes, and heads north as well. "Inari, can you keep Jason out of trouble? I want to find out what's going on."
The front door hisses open, revealing a dusty interior.
"Well, hot dang," Cadena says, looking surprised. "I'm checking the garage." He rushes in, followed by clattering noises.
Inari glides up and after Jason. "You're asking a lot," she says over the comm. "Normally I get him in trouble."
"Still here!" Cadena cries from the garage. "Aww, I missed you. I mean, I would've if I'd remembered you. Let's call it retroactive. Now, let's make sure you don't blow up on me."
"He probably just found a motorcycle," Tracy says. "I call shotgun!"
"Maybe he has a battery I ca borrow to boost the suit power. Got ot get to the vanes," Jason mutters as he turns and starts towards the old farmhouse now.
The garage door rattles open, as Cadena disengages the door from the automatic track. "House's backup cell is still online, for door locks and such, but main power's off the grid - no surprise." He rolls out a low slung motorcycle, portions of the shell glistening with preservative gel. The sidecar is attached, filled with packing material, which he starts to scoop out. "Help yourself to what you can use from the garage."
"Backup cell will work. Plus who knows; maybe I can rig up some explosives from things in the garage," Jason declares as he rubs armored hands together. "They're going to get fireworks, but not quite the ones I think they're hoping for if I get my way."
"So.. maybe I should go get my disguise again just in case," Tracy says, and hurries back to the tree where she left the jumpsuit and helmet.
"Don't try the fridge, though," Cadena warns, gesturing to a mini-fridge near the tool bench. "I ... got back from a fishing trip not long before the Fracture event. I'd hate to think what it turned into in there."
Their suit comms, still tuned to one of Irongrip's frequencies, picks up the Department of Defense secretary as he continues to ramble to the assembled Irongrip Security soldiers. "Imagine it! A device that will allow us to transport soldiers anywhere. The Ouoroboros Project will revolutionize warfare, and by controlling it, we will be able to prevent anyone else from developing a similar device. The United States will once again be the world's peacekeeper." Behind him, the hangar begins opening, light pouring across the giant vessel concealed inside.
"Hey, isn't that the thing my mom turned into a giant hot dog?" Tracy comments as she watches the feed.
Sunlight pours across the ancient Empire of Stars battleship as it glides forward slowly, levitated through some unimaginable technology. Gems set into its side have been polished into brilliance, catching the sunset, and its guns look nastily modern.
"Oh hell no. They aren't starting any sort of crazy invasion using my ship. No way, no how," Jason practically growls as he stomps into the garage. "I brought that thing to life, I sure as hell can take it out. I know every blasted bolt! And gems? GEMS?!? Seriously? He's turned my ship into some sort of flying pimp parade! That's just ... OOOOO!" As he rants and raves he waves his armored arms about wildly. "Oh, this is personal now!"
The soldiers gasp and point up at the massive battleship. "What the frotz--" "Ain't no way that thing can fly!" "It looks like something out of a video game, for cripes' sake!" "Wouldn't want to be standing in front of those guns, though."
"Not to mention a massive violation of Avatars LLC copyrights," Tracy notes. "But it makes sense I guess. I mean, it's the one vehicle Jason is least likely to actually blow up, isn't it?"
Power lines still connect the Ozymandias to the hangar... But they are no ordinary power lines. Reddish fluid visibly pulses within them, and the gems flash in time with them. Perhaps this is where the nuclear reactor's output is being devoted. Whatever Jason Zero is going to do with this... It's going to need a lot of energy.
"It's probably got a quantum core in it to manage the portal stuff," Tracy notes as she struggles to get the Irongrip jumpsuit over her sneaksuit, then runs for Cadena's bike. "Otherwise, how could it get back from wherever it's going? Maybe we should steal it!"
"Everyone, I suggest you get out of here. They're using my ship, and worse ... the gate I had to make to get us out years ago, to power this thing. The Ouroboros project portal is my portal. Everything here is my fault ... and I'm even helping. That's why they took my clone, the only other person keyed to be able to use any of this. So, it's my responsibility to stop this; no matter the cost," Jason says as he slams one of the power cords to the backup cell into his armor to recharge its batteries. "And there is only one way to be sure they can't use any of this, or me, again. I have to destroy it, my clone, and myself. So, the rest of you ... drive away from here. Get as far as you can because ... I have no idea how big of an explosion this will be."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2012-01-01-welcome-the-new-year-with-a-bang.htmlWednesday, December 4 - 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific
Despite his bold declaration, Jason has not managed to shake Tracy, Cadena, or Inari loose; instead they are riding along on a vintage nuclear-powered Polytechnic Motors 'Capricorn' motorcycle, Inari in the sidecar and Tracy (being smaller) in the saddle behind Cadena. RIU clings to Jason's shoulder as he glides just over the treetops. It's only 5 minutes by air from the farmhouse to the guarded border of the Palmdale Weapon Testing Grounds for the VTOL transport, but it's a significantly longer trip by ground, following roads or at least avoiding the most difficult terrain.
As they proceed down the road well past the 'No Trespassing' and 'Government Restricted Property' signs, the forest starts to look twisted. Rocks are half-melted on one side and the trees grow crookedly. Glowing eyes watch them from the underbrush.
On the way, Thomas Whaley gives them a sitrep in a hushed tone of voice. In the background, the aircraft rings with the noise of equipment being hauled about, weapons being loaded, soldiers suiting up in heavy armor. "The brass is going over the map of the Shengsheng Jiang labs with the strike team. In about an hour, I'm going to lift the ATV up onto the deck of the Ouroboros, then they'll roll it into the gateway chamber, where the plan is to drive into... I don't get how it's going to work, but it sounds like they're going to open some kind of portal right into the enemy base. Insane! The whole giant flying battleship thing was crazy enough to start with."
A message alert chimes. Thomas Whaley looks up at a different display. "Uh oh. We just got a new order update. They're tracking incoming ground traffic. They want us to send out a Valkyrie and turn them away before they get close enough to see the Ouroboros. Ah, that's you guys, isn't it?"
"That may play into our favor. Any chance we could hitch a ride on the ship after a faux firefight that 'destroys' the intruder vehicle?" Jason replies into the comm. "And as for the portal, I highly doubt it'll open to where they expect, to be honest. In fact, I can guarantee it won't."
"It sounds like the airship is where the portals open and close, rather than the whole thing traveling," Tracy laser-links to the others. "So, we want to be in the strike force, but sneak off before it portals and get into the ship.. or go through and see where they end up? Or.. both?"
Thomas Whaley nods. "Roger that, Jason, I'll alert the Valkyrie so they can be ready for a pickup. Uplinking intercept coordinates to you now." Jason's on-board map lights up with a 3D view of the countryside, along with Tracy's wristcomm and Cadena's link. A blinking red dot shows the ground vehicle to be interdicted... Which isn't the motorcycle, or the armor -- both are apparently too small or not enough metal to alert the sensors. It's a hovertruck chugging down the road a short distance ahead of them.
Cadena doesn't contribute to the discussion as he continues to keep the bike on the road, eyeing the occasional twisted bit of terrain -- a remnant of the effects of the Fracture Event as it twisted reality in the vicinity, years ago. He can't help but cast a brief and pointless glance upward, as if trying to seek out the eye-in-the-sky that right now might be picking out his bike and measuring a response.
"Wait. That isn't us, Thomas. It's some sort of truck. We'll intercept it. It's probably some kook group and they don't want to get involved here," Jason says into the comm again and diverts his course to intercept the incoming truck.
RIU zeebles on Jason's shoulder, clinging tightly! It cranes its neck, looking around... And spots the truck rumbling past a dead tree and a rock outcropping! It's a brown truck withthe logo "Starving Students Movers" emblazoned on the side.
Inari cranes her neck, trying to see past Cadena and the Capricorn's handlebars, but can't quite make it out.
"You've got a scope on your rifle, right Inari?" Tracy asks the fox. "Can you get a look at the driver through it?"
"I could, but I don't have line of sight," the golden vixen replies tersely. "You'll have to turn that way."
Over the comm, Thomas reports, "Valkyrie team is on its way. They'll issue a vocal warning to turn back, then open fire if the vehicle continues."
"The vehicle has 'Starving Students Movers' on the side. This is some kook group, Thomas. Just try and disable the vehicle if you get there before we do," Jason sends back through the comm.
Sergeant Thomas Whaley nods. "Copy that."
"Unless it's another echo or whatever we just experienced at the farmhouse," Tracy opines.
The truck chugs along slowly, but so far they don't have a line of sight on the driver's window.
The motorcycle continues along the road at a cautious pace, far behind the hover-truck.
"What's that about disabling?" Cadena asks over his com-set. "Are we trying to intercept that vehicle?"
"Yes, we are. It's probably a bunch of college kids on some conspiracy theory jaunt. We need to stop them before they actually get hurt," Jason answers.
"Well, we can't let them make it to the hot zone, or they'll get shot up," Tracy says. "So as long as they don't start shooting at us.."
"Okay," Cadena says. "I'll pick it up a little, then. Maybe we can get their attention, get them to pull over." He gives the motorcycle a little more "throttle."
The truck continues to drive down the road at a steady pace. Above, the grey fox-shaped armor zooms just over the treetops, while Cadena drives at nearly the same rate, following the road. Inari sights down her rifle, trying to catch a glimpse of it. They round one curve and enter the beginning of another, as marked by a fading yellow highway sign reading 'WARNING! CURVES AHEAD!'.
"Funny, I would have thought the curves were behind Cadena since Inari is riding behind him," Jason comments about the sign.
The 3D view shows the Valkyrie approaching them; it'll be on top of them in about 30 seconds.
"I'm behind Cadena," Tracy notes. "Inari is in the sidecar. Can't you tell us apart when we've got identical jumpsuits and helmets?"
The golden vixen squints through the scope of her Naginata Divine Mercy laser sniper rifle as she tries to get a positive ID on the truck's inhabitants. "The back gate is closed," she reports. After a second she adds, "I think I see icicles on the lock. Didn't think it got this cold in California."
"Ice? That truck might be Randall and Mara!" Jason says into the comm.
Cadena's bike navigates the turns of the twisty road at a faster pace, but still not at break-neck action-movie pace. Although he's gaining a bit on the hovertruck, there's no way at this rate that he's going to intercept it before the guy in the flying armor is going to get to it.
"Uh, do you know what channel Randall would be on?" Tracy asks.
It used to be a hobby to take over the old satellite emergency controls of trucks 'back in the day' through a wireless hack panel. Why the time he got a hold of that RV and had it reverse-flush all the toilets on that family was ... well, a tale for another time! The old relays for calling for emergency and allowing vehicle shutdown in the case of theft were never very secure. Using a global key is just asking for trouble. Jason adjusts the transmission power to weaken his own signal to make it 'appear' like it came from a satellite, and broadcasts the 'navigational control' override signal; the familiar ping of 'accept' comes back like sweet, sweet, music. He cuts the engine power to half to slow it down to buy a little more time. "Randall, if that's you," Jason transmits over old comm bands they've used in the past, "You've got an armed airship about to bomb you."
Cadena thumbs a lever on his bike, emitting a simulated "classic tractor-truck horn" blare in a bid to get the hovertruck driver's attention.
"Augh!" Tracy squeals at the sound of the horn. "That was us?"
The truck throttles down. A Hispanic-looking man in a blue worker's coverall pops up on Jason's comm. The video call gets copied over to Tracy and Cadena's links as well, in 'lurk' mode. "What the-- huh! Jason! What are you doing out here?!" he says. To his right is a Japanese woman also in worker's coveralls, looking anxious and worried. "Why are we slowing down? Is something wrong with the engine?"
"I have control of your truck," Jason answers. "You're about to get bombed if you don't turn around. why are you out here anyway? I'm supposed to be the only person on a suicide mission."
As the truck slows, Jason has ample time to catch up and get a visual confirmation. Yep... That's Randall in that goofy mover's cap.
"What are you two doing out here and why didn't you tell us.." Tracy starts to say, then remembers: they're all supposed to have been shot down and killed while escaping from Avatars..
Randall grumps. "Great! Well, you're in control, get us under cover!" Akiko peers out the other side and yelps, pointing up at the Valkyrie fast approaching.
"Any chance we can just ask them not to shoot the hovertruck?" Cadena asks. "For that matter, not to shoot us once they see us? Do I need to head for cover, too?"
Over the comm, Tom Whaley reports, "20 seconds until they're in range. You got a line on that incoming bogey?"
"And I thought that mustache was bad. The hat is far worse," Jason remarks rather dryly. And cover coming up, hold onto that doofy hat!" And that's about when Jason makes the truck take a hard left so that he can bring it under tree cover. That will at least make air attacks more difficult. "Irongrip is flying that transport. We can hitch a ride back on it, but we're going to have to make some sort of convincing distraction ... like blowing that truck up once everyone is off it."
"Thomas, the truck is Randall and Akiko. They're old friends of the Irongrip too. I'm taking the truck off the road. Think we can set up a convincing ruse and be picked up?" Jason asks in the comm.
The harried-looking logistics officer says, "Setting it up now. Yeah! Hold off on bolting the ATV down, General's orders, he wants to inspect it himself." This last is an aside call to the soldiers in the cargo bay of the Eagle Security Transport.
The truck has a few dicey moments as Jason steers it off the road, having to pilot it through a third-person point of view, but it's finally safely parked under the cover of the trees.
"Inari, do you have enough power to disguise Mara?" Tracy asks the vixen.
"Okay, so, I think we'll soon have a lift back on that bird," Jason says as he goes into land near the truck. "And maybe they'll have a way to get all of you out of this zone. It'll make it easier for me to work out how to blow that old battleship without worrying about your safety."
Cadena pulls the motorcycle up alongside the hovertruck, now that the both of them are off the road. He comes to a stop and nods in acknowledgement to the driver of the other vehicle, then casts his gaze skyward to gauge the few seconds until they're all intercepted by the air support, for better or worse. "What's the new plan? Hide? Flee? Hitch a ride?"
Randall jumps out of the truck, with Akiko emerging on the other side. The police officer runs to the back of the truck and struggles to open it... But seems to be having problems with ice holding the doors together. "Mara!" he yells accusingly. "Did you breath on the door?!"
"I'm hopping on board. All of you should get out of here," Jason grumbles.
An apologetic roar comes from the inside of the truck.
RIU giggles on Jason's shoulder.
Inari slings her laser rifle back over her shoulder. "Long time no see, Randall," she says.
"Jason, you can't just blow up the ship and think that will stop the project," Tracy points out. "Dantech might have backups of Jason Zero. We have to break Dantech first."
"One moment, I can probably use the jets to pull the door," Jason grumbles as he thumps his way over to the frozen door. He grips one side with his hands and locks the micro-servos and synthetic muscles. The other he places one of his boots on the door and tries pulsing the rocket jet to yank the door open.
"Why not just use them to melt the ice?" Cadena asks, though too late.
Ka-CHUNG! The door cracks and opens suddenly, sending Jason flying back a few steps before he can recover. Inside is of course, Mara, a large ice wyvern with armor that resembles a hoverbike's. A thin layer of snow covers the moving truck's interior, making the tools and storage cabinets inside into shiny white boxes.
To the north, the sounds of a Valkyrie's engines grow louder.
Seeing that Jason is occupied, Cadena turns to Tracy behind him -- and Inari. "Okay. Time's short. What do I do? Leave these folks behind and hit the road to aim for the base, and let Jason catch up?"
Inari considers. "Yes," she says to Tracy. "I can make Mara invisible for a few minutes, but I hope you can explain Randall and Akiko."
"Looks like we're about to find out how well we can trust Irongrip," Jason remarks dryly as he looks up towards the incoming ship.
"We need to get on the Valkyrie," Tracy says, and climbs down from the bike. "I hope Mara is all healed up and can fly on her own!"
"Trust... Irongrip?" Randall says to Jason as if he had suddenly started speaking in tongues.
The wyvern emerges from the truck, then slurps! Jason appreciatively.
"You know we can claim Mara is some prototype monster for their silly game-looking warship," Jason notes, beslurped and thankful he's armored right now.
Akiko runs up and hugs Inari! Then the rest of them so they don't feel left out. "What are you guys doing out here?" she asks. "Randall was feeling a bit cooped up in Omega Ranch so we decided to get out and investigate the local serial killings. All signs are pointing to this place up ahead being the epicenter of the events."
"Long story, Randall. Irongrip was apparently used as a 'patsy' regarding the attack on you," Jason notes.
"And I'm not really dead," Tracy adds.
"Sadly, she is not a zombie, no," Jason agrees.
Cadena says, "Nor Mr. Edwards here, either, but we're hoping we can persuade him not to try to go out in a flash of glory just to get at his Evil Twin Brother."
Tracy looks like she wants to kick Jason for that comment.. but she's not about to test his armor. "We've got like one minute before the gunship lands.." she notes instead.
Randall says dryly, "So I see..." He gives Jason a hand up, then gives him a manly slap on the back. "You got your armor working! Now I can hide behind you if that Valkyrie starts shooting."
Inari hugs Akiko back, then surprises the Japanese woman with a lick on the nose. Eeee!
"In any event, the safest way on base is on the airship about to land. No way we can fight past the defenses," Jason remarks and looks skyward ... only to rock forward from the slap. So, he looks over his shoulder to comment, "I'll just throw your body into one of the canon barrels. You look like a pipe cleaner anyway..."
The Valkyrie hovers into view, sunlight splashing against its westward side.. "Attention, this is a restricted area. Turn back or we will open fire," a male voice says through a loudspeaker. The speaker crackles, then resumes in a quieter tone of voice. "All right, pleasantries aside, you've got about thirty seconds to get clear before the fireworks start. Want to get aboard before that?"
"That's our call. All aboard before the explosions start!" Jason tells the others before transmitting to the airship. "We're coming aboard. Thanks for the lift."
"Are you gonna ride Mara and keep her invisible?" Tracy asks Inari as she heads for the aircraft.
"They shoot up my bike, I'm going to be awfully sore," Cadena says. "I'll get over it, but I'll still be sore." He pats the bike.
"Park it further away then," Jason tells Cadena. "It's apparently too small to be picked up anyway."
The Valkyrie looks to have enough room for them, excepting Mara. The golden vixen nods. "That seems safest."
Cadena wastes no time complying, and pulls the bike away and toward some scrub that he hopes will be far enough away to avoid any debris from the "fireworks."
"Try not to be jealous about Inari riding Randall's dragon," Tracy teases Jason, then hurries to board the Valkyrie.
"You two are cute together," Jason quips to Inari and Akiko in passing. "And excuse me, I have a teenager to go kill." He heads off after Tracy.
The VTOL's inside is similar to the Eagle Security Transport, writ small: there are jumpseats on both sides of the inner compartment, large enough that one could ride in full armor, and compartments overhead provide gear storage. The armed soldier inside looks a bit on-edge as he welcomes them aboard. "The General says welcome, but we'll have to hurry, they're about to load the strike team on board. Tom's inventing delays."
Akiko blushes at Jason! Inari laughs, then goes off to kill Jason.
Or, at least lick his ear viciously.
Over a short rise, Cadena powers down the bike, grabs his stuff off it, then unrolls a tarp from a sidecar compartment and throws it over; it's not camouflaged by any means, and the few bits of scrub he throws over it won't pass muster, either, but there's just no time to spend on doing a proper job. He rushes back, gear in tow, to catch up with the others before the craft lifts off.
"Here, Akiko," Tracy says, and hands over her Irongrip jumpsuit before taking a seat (and setting her sneaksuit to black, so it looks like a jumpsuit from a distance).
"If you die I'll never forgive you. In fact, I'll find a way to bring you back and kill you for dying," Jason quips to Inari after his armor finds itself licked. He's such a romantic.
The Japanese woman blushes harder as she realizes that it means changing out of her coveralls in mixed company!
Inari hugs Jason before leaping onto Mara's back. She throws a jaunty wave. "I'll hold you to that!" she says before waving her hands, cloaking herself and the wyvern.
"You know, mister, that might go both ways," Cadena says in a low tone, passing Jason as he loads into the craft.
"There won't be enough of me left to bring back. I intend to leave a crater," Jason quips as he finds a place to sit onboard the craft. "No turning back at this point. We fail, well ... the world may end. No pressure or anything."
Once they're onboard, the pilot of the Valkyrie takes it back up. "Nothing valuable left on the truck, I hope," he says as he arms the guns.
Akiko makes people turn their backs so she can change! Randall smirks, then brings out his wristcomm and makes some alterations... His brown mover's outfit changes and then becomes black! Some more work and use of his wristcomm's camera allows him to duplicate the Ironfist logo and uniform trims. "Amaranth Emperor's Clothes outfit," he explains. "A thousand and one possible uses!"
Cadena does a quick check to make sure RIU is in here and not snacking on hovertruck batteries.
RIU peers out the back of the valkyrie at Mara and Inari! Even though they're invisible. Maybe especially because of that.
"Why didn't you get Akiko one of those?" Tracy asks Randall.
"Don't tempt me to really make it simulate the Emperor's clothes," Jason remarks. And RIU earns a comment as well! "If I didn't know any better, I would think you're worried about them. Could it be that you're starting to like her?"
Cadena reaches out the pats the little dragon lightly. "Guess it's like a reunion for you, little fella, huh? Don't worry. We'll meet up with your buddies again soon."
The Hispanic man protests, "I didn't know she'd want one! I expensed this one for job purposes."
RIU nips Jason! Then chirps happily at Cadena's patting.
"And not to impress Akiko on your date?" Jason teases Randall after poking at a very nippy little dragon!
"So, are we going to try and get onto the Ouroboros from the troop carrier?" Tracy asks. "I'm sure Inari already knows where to get Mara in, and you guys know that ship.. but Cadena and I don't. It must have a Q-Core in it if it's opening portals, right?"
The Valkyrie revs its guns up, the chainguns nearly silent as they function with pneumatic efficiency. The pilot speaks over the loudspeaker, "This is your last warning... Employing lethal force." Ratatatat! Flechettes rip through the brown moving truck. Randall holds his hat -- it's not part of the Emperor's Clothes, evidently-- over his chest in a moment of silence for the vehicle.
Cadena sighs, shaking his head sadly, as he sees a perfectly good machine get shredded to bits.
"Not necessarily. Portals were opened before without one," Jason notes, having to pause and wince at the obliteration of the van. "I want to get to the main engineering deck so I can sabotage the engines. I should be able to make it go up in a blaze of glory."
"Could we not just blow it up and kill everyone?" Tracy asks with a wince. "We don't know what Jason Zero's real plans are. That strike force could be going into Dantech HQ for a double-cross.. and if that's the case I'm all for cooperating! And if the ship isn't the thing actually opening the portals, then blowing it up doesn't do much. I mean, it's from VR! They can just recreate it all again."
"Okay, catching up time," Randall says. The soldier and the pilot are in the forward compartment now, leaving the cargo area clear for them. "I'll go first. The way I figure it, this area is charged with some kinda quantum instability, and that's causing sympathetic portals to open up nearby, letting simulation critters out for a wander... Avatars can sense portals nearby, it turns out. We took Mara out for a spin, and we managed to find one. Want to guess where it went?"
"To.. the Diadem?" Tracy guesses.
"No, they can't," Jason retorts, "I customized that thing! It's one of a kind." He even crosses his arms. He then can't help but blink and look to Randall. "Where?"
"Test North Bend! Remember where we ran into Sage Fjalar and Blake and his kiddie friends?" Randall glances over at Akiko and Inari. "No offense, 'course."
"That's an odd place to open a portal to, expect of course we already know they're modifying the world in there," Jason comments.
Inari says over the comlink, "No offense taken."
except, not expect
Akiko adds, "I told him not to go in there! What if it snapped shut while he was in there?"
"But.. that simulation's Q-Core was destroyed.." Tracy notes. Then blinks and says, "Oh.. Randall, Akiko.. this is Cadena! He used to be my dog, sort of, but now he's someone else."
"Did he try to go in anyway?" Jason asks.
Cadena waves a hand to Randall. "S'why I'm keeping the helmet on. Helps avoid embarrassing questions."
Randall looks skyward. Well, at the ceiling of the Valkyrie, anyway! "Of course I did! It was crazy, there was this black cathedral looming over everything, weird vanes on all the buildings... And the citizens were just walking around doing business as usual. I saw a few monsters flying around, but it looked pretty intact otherwise."
Akiko peers into Cadena's visor!
"Pleased to meet you, Miss Summers," Cadena says, leaning forward and offering a hand to her to shake.
The young Japanese woman hugs Cadena. ^_^
"Good boy!" Jason praises Randall. "Sounds like the modified data we saw. I think that's Dantech's new 'base', so to speak. Probably designed by my counterpart."
"It's possible," Randall agrees. "But if they destroyed the Q-Core it was running on..." He shakes his head. "Or maybe they substituted a fake Q-Core!"
"We know that Jason Zero sort of stole that data," Tracy points out. "There was also an invasion attempt by the Empire of Stars on Avatars LLC that he was involved with! Not sure how many Dantech people are Empire infiltrators now.."
"Then how would I have gotten any of the data at all? Including the biosignatures that Arcadia wanted?" Jason points out.
"Geh!" Cadena blurts out, surprised by the excessive display of friendliness, perhaps. He awkwardly reaches out and hugs Akiko back, but it's more like one of those awkward "manly-hug hugs" involving a bit of patting on the back.
"You never had trouble being hugged when you were on all fours," Tracy points out to Cadena.
Randall looks confused. "How did..." He shakes his head. "I don't know, honestly! But we figured the answers had to be in this area, all the killings center on this base. We were hoping that by riding around in the moving truck, we could avoid questions, but..." He glances over at the Valkyrie pilot.
Once the hug is over with, Cadena reaches into a jumpsuit pocket, looks at one of the monitors, pulls out a scratch-pad and stylus, and scribbles some notes, looking aloof, perhaps. Or just awkward.
"The Ouroboros came out of the big hangar, but could there be another portal to Test North Bend that it came through?" Tracy wonders out loud.
"Right. We'll just drive around in three tons of dense metal. I'm sure that no sensors could possibly detect that. Nope, there wouldn't be microvibrations in the ground, or an emf signature, or," Jason teases Randall. "You're brave, bud ... but not so good at thinking through the security angles."
Randall grimaces. "Yeah, once we crossed the 'no man's land' signs, it might have been a better idea to get out and fly."
"I've got some scary news for you, Officer Cranston, about what we found here," Cadena says. "You know how virtual critters who come into the Real World start to melt into goo and turn all zombie-like? Well, we found a spot where that happens to creatures from THIS world. It went away ... but for all we know, it could happen again somewhere else."
The Hispanic CERT officer pauses. "... What."
"Yeeeahh," Jason agrees. "And I'm not so worried about that, really. That was likely due to temporal distortion. That was the same world, just time-shifted..."
Randall looks a bit worried. "Time... shifted? How do you figure that?"
"I don't know about you," Cadena says, "but frankly, introducing time travel into this whole mess is just about as scary." He casually tears off the top sheet of his scratch-pad and hands it over to Tracy.
"Except the past was 'more real' than the present," Tracy notes. "Oh, and we learned the dirty secret about Dantech's quantum-core systems - and they want to erase our memories because of it." She looks at what Cadena just handed her.
"Only if things can cross over, which isn't happening so much," Jason points out.
Akiko says, "So what are you guys doing here? Is Jason Zero the one behind all these portals popping up? Dantech? What are they doing?"
"The answer to that is they both are. My clone is head of this project from the scientific bent," Jason answers. "Under the auspices of Dantech."
Randall raises his eyebrows. "Q-Cores have a dirty secret behind them? I'm curious now."
"Cloned brains," Cadena says.
"... Madre de Dios," Randall says. "If that were to get out..."
Tracy blinks at the note Cadena gave her, then hands the paper back after reading it. "We found that out after the invasion of Avatars LLC by the Empire. It was the BLACK, and Jason Zero.. sort of. He's high up in the Empire, apparently, and was the one who gave orders to the agents they sent through. So they have some way of making virtual people real."
Akiko asks, "What is their project?"
"Q-Cores have giant living brains in them." Jason explains simply, "And their secret project is to build a portal system for the military to invade other countries. They're about to test it on the Chinese bloc right now. Or so they claim."
"It all depends one what Jason Zero's plans are, really," Tracy adds.
The Palmdale Weapons Testing Grounds loom ahead. The Ozymandias continues to float at the center of the cleared circle of ground, with a handful of planes parked around it. Behind it is the massive hangar; from this view they can now see the interior of the thing, which appears to be incongruously made up like a stage set of North Bend. Pulsing red power lines connect the Ozymandias to huge machines within the hangar. The red-glowing crystals scattered across its surface look to be nearly fully charged. Einhorn Crowd Protection mechas patrol around the perimeter of the base-- perhaps it's just as well they didn't attempt a frontal assault.
Randall frowns. "A... portal system? They're using the portals to shuttle people into VR, then from there into somewhere else?" He frowns, shaking his head. "I thought something was fishy when my superiors told me not to worry my pretty little head about the implications of portals and VR, and that I had more important work to do!"
Akiko gasps, catching sight of the Ozymandias. "What is that doing out here?!"
"If we're to believe the cryptic warnings," Cadena notes, "Jason Zero wants to become 'a god' or 'the god,' and Dantech wants to shut everything down -- no 'gods,' no 'magic.' Given how much it's been messing with reality, I could sympathize with the latter, except that Dantech has been just a bit too evil for my taste."
"Defying gravity," Tracy says.
Jason leans to look out the window at the ship and its power lines below. "I wonder if I could reverse the flow and suck all the power out of my ship," he mutters. Louder, he adds, "Those rat-bastards stole my ship and claim its their invention, that's what!"
Randall looks over the pilot's shoulders. "What have they done to my ship?!"
"Your ship? I rebuilt it! It's my ship!" Jason argues.
"Now, kids, play nice. There's plenty to share ... unless you blow it up first," Cadena says.
Sergeant Thomas Whaley's voice crackles over the intercom, interrupting the argument. "Be ready to join the ATV crew," he says. "Are you all suited and ready to pass inspection?"
"I won't come close to passing inspection, will I?" Jason asks.
"As ready as we're going to get," Tracy confirms, and puts her helmet back on.
"Yeah, I reckon I'm up to it," Cadena grumbles. His helmet is on, his tail concealed. "My tail feels about dead. I look forward to standing up again."
The logistics officer shrugs. "Merc outfits like ours are known for a bit of... eccentricity from its personnel. Lots of our staff have their own personal touches on their armor. As long as they shoot when the General says fire, and it does damage, he's all right with that. I'm more worried about if the brass comes by."
"I'm as ready as I can possibly be, I suppose. I think I'll keep my weapons-systems charged though, all the same. And RIU? To my shoulder and cloak yourself. I think you can recharge here due to the instability anyway..." Jason says.
The Valkyrie comes around for a landing, parking next to the larger Eagle Security ES-4070 Transport. Once there, the soldier emerges from the front compartment to open the hatch for their passengers. Outside are mostly Irongrip soldiers milling around, setting up a camp.
The mini-dragon beeps obediently! It shimmers out of sight, its tail curled snugly around Jason's neck-armor.
Tracy makes sure her pistol and taser as secured in the sneaksuit's built-in holsters in case she has to activate the camouflage system.. and hops down to the ground.
The General stands nearby, barking orders at his troops. A graying older man with a slight paunch in a uniform jumpsuit, he manages to look intimidating through sheer presence as he points at lieutenants and directs them to camp construction activities on the west side of the testing grounds.
Jason tries to get in the middle of the troops heading for the ES-4070 transport that exist the Valkyrie. He's trying to look as inconspicuous as someone in dull power armor can, at least. As he walks, he monitors the area for hackable comm signals or anything else that might be at least 'interesting' to probe based on its signal structure.
Cadena files out, right behind Tracy. His form is obscured in a bulky field-coat-and-armor security outfit, with his primary conventional weapon consisting of a holstered shotgun, and a bundled-up staff slung over his back with a visible powered attachment of some sort, suggesting a device meant for riot duty or perhaps fending off wild animals. He also carries a visible med-kit.
Tracy keeps close, but also looks across the field towards the Dantech VIP group, to see if there's any activity.
The local comm traffic seems to be standard military grade encryption, from what Jason can pick up, meaning that it would probably take several minutes to break through any particular target's security... And would make him a target for the government defense troops that are guarding the installation.
Jason mutters something about government paranoia.
Andrei is no longer visible on the scene-- most likely he's gone to supervise the experiment, either from the radar and communications building visible to the east, or possibly on the Ozymandias itself.
"I don't see your BFF," Tracy notes to Jason. "Is he the type to lead from behind, or will he be on the ship?"
Akiko follows the others, looking distinctly nervous as she hefts the assault rifle over her back. Somewhere in the air, Inari and Mara are making their way to the Ozymandias where they can hover and keep an eye on things.
"Don't make me stuff you into the head, head first," Jason all but growls to Tracy. "Andrei will be on the ship. He can't stand it if he's not there to wave his tallywhacker in his own private victory dance. my clone is likely on board as well. Probably also behind armor and guards, which is why I just have to blow the ship up..."
Sergeant Thomas Whaley waves them onboard. "Held off inspection as long as I could, but they're going to review you any minute." There are six heavily armed and armored soldiers standing nearby, presumably the strike team that was intended to take point in the invasion of the Shengsheng Jiang Labs.
"If Jason Zero could copy the North Bend simulation, then he could have copies of the ship, himself... everything," Tracy points out, and tries not to look nervous about the inspection.
"You had better be ready for anything if they do manage to power the portals up," Jason remarks quietly to Thomas. To Tracy he adds, "He wouldn't because why copy what is already perfect, eh?"
"Paranoia?" Tracy suggests.
"He wouldn't copy himself. He would be a threat to himself and all that," Jason points out.
"I dunno," Tracy counters. "If that were true, why hasn't he killed you yet?"
"Because as you pointed out, he wants to beat me," Jason notes.
Sergeant Thomas Whaley inspects them. "It'll have to do," he says as footsteps approach the ES-4070 transport, the General purposefully speaking loudly as he recounts the names and past mission records for his personnel.
"Then he'll go after Andrei, I bet," Tracy notes, before going silent for inspection. She probably will have to pull up the visor on her helmet for this, but hopes she won't need to.
Cadena keeps out of the radio banter, focusing on trying to look professional -- not too rigid and nervous, but also not some slacker who doesn't belong here.
"Probably. Maybe I can slip Andrei a suppository grenade and take out both at the same time," Jason muses. "It would be only fitting given what a pain in the butt he is."
An older man in Space Force blues, heavily decorated with holographic medallions and insignia, steps into the transport with the General at his side and a squad of bodyguards. "Ah! And these are the men you've described in such praiseworthy terms," he says. Then adds on spotting Tracy and Akiko, "And women."
Jason takes this as the cue to shut up and be silent. Almost there.
The Secretary of Defense is instantly recognizable from his past appearances on evening news programs where he's issued dire warnings about the nation's readiness to bring order to chaotic and lawless parts of the world, not just abroad but in their own homeland. He inspects the troopers, then stops in front of Cadena. "You! Your name and mission specialty?"
"Corporal Eli Dodge, sir!" Cadena barks, snapping to full attention. "Medical specialist, with cross-training in xenomorphic creature control!"
"Good, good. The godless Chinese might have been working on more than just portal research, from what I gather. They could have whipped up a whole army of slavering monsters!" The veteran sizes up Cadena, then nods approval.
"He's more paranoid than I am," Jason thinks. "I'm ... oddly impressed."
He moves on to the next soldier in line, then another, and confronts Randall. "And you?"
"Sir, yes sir! Private Gray Cranston. Ni hui shuo zhongwen ma-- I'm a linguist." The Hispanic-looking man salutes.
The Secretary of Defense looks suitably impressed. "Good thinking, General." Irongrip nods tightly.
He moves on next to Jason. The gray fox-shaped helmet sets the Secretary of Defense aback. "Impressive suit of armor, mister," he says. "I'm guessing you're the muscles in case we need some heavy lifting done?"
"Specialist in heavy weaponry and demolitions, sir," Jason replies. "If it's in the way ... well, it won't be for long."
The Secretary smiles. "That's the spirit! Let nothing keep us from bringing freedom to the entire world!"
He moves on next to the two pretty women, and looks at Tracy first. "Name and specialty?"
Tracy pulls back her visor and salutes in the same motion. "Specialist Tracer Fuseli, sir," she claims, trying not to squeak. "Infiltration and Strategic Asset Recovery."
The Secretary takes this in. "Well, honey, I'll keep you in mind on the assets recovery end of things," he says with a wink. "If this proves out, there're bound to be a lot more operations like it."
"Thank you, sir," Tracy says.
Akiko for her part stammers as she answers, standing up straight and holding onto the strap of her assault rifle. "P-p-private May Summers, sir! EM monitoring and jamming." The Secretary of Defense inspects her minutely, frowning.
The secretary cracks a smile. "New on the team, huh, darling? Well, relax, you're in good hands here." He claps her on the shoulder, then lets his hand linger a bit, before lifting it away to clap his hands. "All right, get in and let's get this show on the road!"
As Akiko shivers, the General makes as if to escort the Secretary off the VTOL transport. "As you can see, sir, our mercenaries are a colorful bunch--"
"That's all right, General," the Secretary says. "I'll ride on up with these gents... And ladies, of course. And wish them luck in person as they head through the portal. I aim to see this historic moment with my own eyes!"
Tracy closes her visor so that her less-than-thrilled expression is hidden when it becomes clear the Secretary is going to be looking over their shoulder.
Under the General's supervision, the strike team boards the ATV. The ES-4070 transport itself has plenty of room for the escort soldiers, of course. From the pilot's compartment, Sergeant Thomas Whaley announces, "Lifting off in thirty, folks. Strap in tight!"
The Secretary of Defense and his two bodyguards buckle up on the left side of the cargo compartment, with the General and his aide de camp on the right.
"Accidents happen. It would be terrible if the Secretary fell into an exploding outhouse," Jason thinks rather darkly as he straps in for the transport movement. He also wonders just where Inari and Mara are, but he can't look for them. Another annoyance in a day of annoyances!
Sitting down, Tracy removes her helmet, tightens the bun she's got her hair pulled up into, and then pulls up the hood of the sneaksuit so that she just has to pull down the mask to use it.
The strike team looks at their newcomers curiously as they strap in. Once the ATV is shut, the lieutenant speaks to Jason in the fox armor. "Sir, the General said we should take our cues from you. What's the situation?"
Akiko shudders. "I want to take a shower," she whispers to Tracy.
Cadena pats Randall on the shoulder while boarding. "Don't worry. I can weakly sense Miss M," he whispers. "She's doing just fine." He then straps himself into a harness.
"Don't tell Jason," Tracy whispers back. "He'll be distracted by the thought for an hour.."
Randall grins. "Yeah. They're hovering nearby, Mara tells me. They'll be ready when we make our move."
"I know the 'plan' is the portal is to take us to some lab in China. I suspect, however, it will take us someplace entirely different," Jason says as he looks straight ahead. "The head scientist of this project is not to be trusted. For now, we try to determine what their exact plan is; I'm just fairly certain it is not what the Secretary thinks it is."
The lieutenant nods. "Should we go through, or do you want us to assault the portal setup and try to take control?"
"Until I see the setup, I cannot make that call," Jason admits. "Has anyone here been designated as initial reconnaissance? Or .... do they expect us to all go through in one shot?"
"No probe to send through first?" Cadena queries. "You know, to make sure we're on target, on the other side, before we're all committed?"
Thomas Whaley counts down seconds to lift-off... And then thrust momentarily pushes them into their seats as the ES-4070 launches from the ground. The ATV driver's compartment lights up its viewscreen with the exterior view. They're approaching the Ozymandias now. The afternoon sunlight wanes steadily toward the orange of sunset, limning one side of the massive battleship.
Jason eyes the familiar battleship intently, trying to estimate just mow much has been changed from when he worked on it.
Lieutenant Striker shakes his head. "Apparently once the portal is in place, it'll be just like a window to the other side. We'll hit 'em hard and fast. That's why we're in an ATV, maximum protection."
"And to secure the portal point too," Tracy guesses. "It goes both ways. I could sneak back through though with the suit."
"Or we melt and die after we pass through," Jason remarks. "We have to be careful, Lieutenant. I highly doubt we will see a Chinese lab on the other side."
"Mr. Edwards," Cadena notes quietly, "I don't detect that sort of energy reading. I don't quite have the right ... ah ... technobabble to say it right, but I'm pretty sure this isn't like the phenomenon at the farmhouse. And whatever's forming, it's still building."
The ES-4070 swoops over the Ozymandias, giving them a good look at the crystals that have been mounted on the ship, pulsing with an eerie red light. The main guns are still massive armored behemoths that fire some kind of horrific energy, but the smaller guns have all been replaced by modern Phalanx anti-air guns that track the ship with computerized precision. Modern sensor arrays probe the air around it... Inari's invisibility must apply to more than just the visual spectrum or she and Mara would have been noticed by now.
They come around to the back of the ship, where a hangar opening looks onto a long track running through the middle of the ship. Dimly visible are rows of robots where the small ship storage would normally be.
"I wonder how many are on board that ship. Well, besides a ridiculous number of robots," Jason mutters. they might be hackable, but then if his clone helped design them ... well, that won't be easy.
"Just to clarify," Cadena says, leaning over to whisper to Akiko, next to him, "we might have a lot to worry on, but at least not us being turned into goo -- not today. Although ... just curious, but are you picking up that energy build-up, too? It ought to be strong enough."
Akiko murmurs to Cadena, "I... I feel something in the air. It's like electricity. A storm about to break out."
Cadena just nods, then leans back. Any expression of his is hidden under that helmet and visor.
Sergeant Thomas Whaley says, "Coming down the home stretch, gang. Hold onto your hats!" The ES-4070 whooshes down toward the hangar, then turns in place and drops down to the deck. After a few seconds, the cargo door begins to crank downward to form a ramp.
The Lieutenant grimaces. "And here we just spent the last hour going over our attack on the Chinese labs. I don't know about you, sir, but I hate surprises."
"It sounds like we have some time before the portal actually opens," Tracy says to Jason. "Maybe time to check out the setup?"
"I need to figure out where the power lines are," Jason thinks. Tracy gets a snort nod from him, "If there is time and we are allowed to." His attention then returns to the Lieutenant and he asks, "What did the lab look like? Did it look Chinese, exactly? Or something other-wordly, in the battle plans?"
The cargo door clangs as it strikes the deck. One of the strike team takes the wheels. "Looks like we've got an honor guard of robots, sir," he says. "Why couldn't they have sent in robots instead..."
"Robots aren't much good without someone human in command," the Lieutenant points out. "No smarts."
Jason, just because, checks the area for command links to the robots he could hack.
"I reckon it's still increasing," Cadena says, turning his helmet to "look" from Tracy to Jason, "but I didn't exactly get an owner's manual. I can tell you if it's like or unlike something I sampled before ... but I can't tell you what the end-point is. Could be minutes ... could be any second now. If there's something I can do to help, and fast, please give me the word."
"And don't forget that RIU and I can become invisible," Tracy adds. "Assuming we can crack open the door enough to let one of us out."
The Lieutenant assigns two guards to man the side gunports and one for the top. While the driver goes through the checklist, he asks Jason, "Guns blazing or follow the ops plan?"
Tracy looks thoughtful, then suggests, "Jason.. the power for this may be coming from the local grid, but there was those red feed lines coming from the hangar and the mock-up of Test North Bend. Randall's portal leads there - maybe Inari and Mara can go through and try to disrupt the red energy supply to the ship?"
"Hold for now, seem to be following the original plan. I am still trying to figure out what is going on here," Jason says. "I don't want to throw any wrench prematurely. We need to know what the real goal here is."
"As for the base... Standard military base, it looked like," the lieutenant adds. "Modular construction, airlocks between major sections, internal murder holes in case of attack from outside... The book of base design's about to get tossed out if teleport attacks take off."
Cadena nods to Jason. "Might be a chance this really is gonna be a raid on a Chinese base, to get rid of the competition ... and the surprise won't come until just after that part is done and we try to get back home."
"That may be, but frankly my gut says otherwise," Jason says as he continues to look out of the ATV and probe the area. "Come on. Where am I? Engineering? Bridge? One of those," he thinks. He actually tries a new gambit, he tries to probe for his own or a similar signal.
"We think the ZEUS system can be used to prevent portals from opening too," Tracy notes. "So it could be there as a defense, assuming that once we use the portal technology a few times the other powers will catch onto it and reproduce it."
The lieutenant nods. "Start it up," he says to the driver. The ATV roars to life, chugging down the transport. The Secretary and his bodyguard follow at a comfortable walking pace, admiring the Ouroboros. "Remarkable vessel. Truly remarkable. I hadn't believed Dantech capable of such... Enormous construction." The General nods soberly as he accompanies them, but eyes the robots with glowering suspicion.
"They aren't. Andrei is a putz, Jason thinks.
A loudspeaker clicks on. Andrei Romanov's voice. "Of course. You must learn to think with portals, Secretary. With simulation technology, we can imagine any craft, no matter how large or small, then import it into the real world. The only restriction is the energy required to construct the gateway."
"Okay," Cadena says, "now I'm not sure how the tech works ... but portals form from the point of least resistance between two 'bubbles' of reality. Or something like that. But portals don't ... don't go right from point to point in the same world, do they? You'd have to hop from one bubble to the next ... then hop back to your own bubble, only you'd want the bubbles to touch at a new point. So we're probably going to go through somewhere in between first. That could be the weak point, then. Or am I just way off here?"
"If you want me or RIU to sneak off, it'll have to be soon," Tracy notes. "Maybe they figured out how to open a portal without virtual entanglement? They're using an awful lot of power for this, after all. Maybe brute-force is good enough?" she says to Cadena.
"You're correct, Cadena," Jason notes. "And did anyone else catch that? Andrei ... his voice is betraying him a bit, there. I think he plans to somehow completely destroy this world. He betrays a certain distaste for it, at least..."
The hangar has been redone in modern technology... But down the gunmetal hall they can make out what looks like an elaborate virtual reality setup-- not only holograms, but modular wall blocks hinged on robotic arms, painted a peculiar flat gray that suggests optic camouflage. A giant arch dominates the middle of the chamber. A large armored door behind it is set into a wall flush against the back end, with thin observation slits in which Andrei and Jason Zero's faces can be seen, watching them approach.
Randall frowns. "He did say real in an odd way. Like he was being sarcastic about it being real."
"And there they are, the pair. It makes me sick seeing them together," Jason all but growls. He looks around for any sort of access point to that room those two twits are in.
"Well... uh.. from the farmhouse incident, maybe our world isn't as real as we think," Tracy notes.
Akiko looks confused. "But... Wouldn't we have noticed by now?"
RIU looks around as well! The tiny dragon dismisses the armored door-- far too obvious-- and zeroes in on the grates covering the ventilation shafts.
"Lieutenant, could this vehicle ram through that door?" Jason asks as he looks for an inconspicuous way to send RIU out and through an airshaft to get to Andrei and his 'slave'.
Tracy examines the floor for an escape hatch. She knows tanks had them for recovering soldiers.. or maybe that was just in the movies.
Cadena double-checks his gear, taking inventory of the exits, what surroundings he can make out through the monitors, the locations of fellow passengers, etc.
The ATV continues to drive forward. The Secretary of Defense marvels at the construction... But as the details of the VR chamber become evident, a depiction of some old-fashioned arcology with blazing blue skies covering the walls, he frowns. Maybe it's just a test pattern... But so close to their first operational test? The General frowns as well, his eyes going toward the walls and where to duck when the shooting breaks out.
The lieutenant frowns. "Maybe, sir. Depends on what kind of armor we're looking at. If it's reinforced, we'll need a 'Skeleton Key' penetrator missile."
"Looks like they're sending us through some sort of pastoral land," Jason mutters. "We should stop and demand an explanation. Agree?" He looks to the others.
"Jason," Tracy says, sounding a bit hollow. "What if the farmhouse event wasn't a coincidence? What if.. this isn't a portal to a place, but to a time?"
Jason frowns. "What if we're the cause of the collapse?" he suggests. "We're about to invade it, after all. And if we pass through that we're going to break down if it is, indeed, a different time."
The lieutenant nods. "Want me to talk, sir, or do you want to?"
"Is there any way we can get a message to the General, and the Secretary of Defense?" Cadena asks. "Maybe fake some sort of urgent call that the Secretary needs to take while this is going on, so he's not in here with us when everything goes down?"
"If I talk there is a risk I will be recognized. Let me see if I can adjust my voice tone quickly," Jason says as he starts to rapidly fiddle with his suit.
"The towers are still under construction in the simulation," Tracy mutters. "So.. what else happened around that time that's important? The bioterror attacks? I wish I hadn't gotten a C in history class now.."
"Stop the ATV. I'll talk," Jason says in an exact mimic of the Lieutenant's voice.
Akiko shakes her head. "The towers were supposed to have fallen down due to shoddy materials in the construction... But why go to all this trouble just for that? Maybe Mr. Romanov thinks that the world would have been a better place if Mr. Arcadia had succeeded in building a paradise on Earth?"
"This isn't time travel," Cadena says. "It's Mr. Arcadia's model. Margie's granddad's work, only ... modified."
The Lietuenant looks perplexed at Jason, but the other men jump and look at Jason. "That's... Really good, sir!" one says awed.
"I doubt it," Jason says. "Andrei is not altruistic."
The Lieutenant turns the mike over to Jason.
"Modified how, Cadena?" Tracy asks, and gets a sudden chill. "Oh.. maybe.."
Randall whispers to Jason, "Inari and Mara are bringing up the rear. They're still invisible, but they're ready if a fight breaks out."
"Also, portals usually open due to similarity of places if I remember right. I do not see how going throuygh that zone gets us to the chinese lab," Jason points out to the others. He then flicks the mic on and speaks to the outside crew. "The area displayed ahead is not the Chinese lab we have been training for. It appears to be a civilian area. Please explain why we are being sent on an alternate mission as we may not have the proper gear to complete your alternate goal," he says through the mic in the guise of the Lieutenant.
"Break into a hi-tech facility, destroy their systems," Tracy says quietly. "If our world is a simulation, could they be sending us out to the reality that's running the simulation to destroy the system? That'd be destroying this world, wouldn't it?" she asks.
Cadena looks at Tracy. "Land sakes. I will never get a good night's sleep again, Miss Fuseli. My journey to existential horror is complete."
Andrei's voice crackles over the loudspeaker. "There's been a change in plans," he says persuasively. "We have just received intelligence about a group of terrorists that have obtained a simulation of this world. Like affects like. If they aren't stopped, they could make all manners of alterations to our very reality. Even your existence could be erased this very second... And no one would remember you had existed. Proceed! Every second counts."
The Secretary pauses. "Now just wait a cockamammy minute here, I didn't get any briefing on such an attack!"
"It's Avatars.. Midgard," Tracy blurts. "They simulate the planet too, to predict trends.. that's why we're looking into what we think of as the past, because we're their prediction of the future.."
"I don't think you are being completely honest with us," Jason says into the mic. "We have been briefed and trained for one particular mission. If it is changed, then we require a new briefing so we can plan out an appropriate strategy. A change this late in a mission implies deception, which as you are aware renders any contract null and void."
Jason's voice... No, it's Jason Zero. Calm and deadly. "Are you saying you are unable to carry out a simple mission, soldier? Dantech will pay you overtime of course, for the additional work. Standard rates. All we are asking of you is to proceed into the building you see in front of you. Eliminate all armed resistance. Remove all scientists who surrender to an office, and seize all quantum cores and related computers you may encounter. Can you not do this or do we need to find more competent mercenaries?"
General Irongrip glowers, laying a hand to his sidearm. The Secretary looks around, considering the numerous robots which have surrounded them. Even though the robots haven't said anything, haven't even moved, there's a distinct air of intimidation about the way they stand.
"If we go through and do that.. you'd be able to alter our world, Jason," Tracy says. "I'm pretty sure that's what Zero and Andrei are planning."
Randall looks at Tracy worriedly. "This... If you're right, what do we do?"
We are the best because we think through our missions; we don't charge in like mindless morons such as the machines you surround us with ... which is why you hired us, correct? We are more than carrying out any mission assigned, provided that mission was assigned in good faith. Provide us detailed schematics of the target and detailed information on the terrorists in question and we will formulate a new strategy," Jason replies, just as calm. "Simply put, we want a layout of exactly where we are going. Can you provide?" The mic is flipped off and he looks at Tracy. "I may be many things, Tracy. I'm a jerk; I'm thoughtless and at times an idiot. But, I'm not a God, nor do I ever want to be. Nor will I let a younger version of myself get it."
"I don't know," Tracy admits. "This.. it depends on how it really works! Is a simulated reality still real? Does the simulation just give you access to another reality that still has its own existence beyond that? If we could, I'd so go through and then alter the simulation so that it can't happen again. But.. then the people on that side would shut it down because of the threat. Which would have the same effect - the two realities would be cut off from one another. Assuming ours would still exist."
"Pardon me for overstepping here," Cadena says, "but if he's really wanting us to trash things from the other side ... we probably want to be on the other side, and work from there, before he wises up."
Andrei says angrily, "General, if your men can't even follow a simple order--" Jason Zero cuts in icily. "Uploading schematics now. You have five minutes. After that... We'll have to take emergency measures."
General Irongrip says with fury, "Sir, my soldiers are the best-- but we expect our employers to treat with us honestly. Surprise mission changes are not acceptable."
"Confirming transmit of schematics. Thank you. Review in progress," Jason says into the mic ... and checks to see that they are being uploaded. With the mic off, Jason says, "Tracy's right. We have to go through and save that world from this one an somehow save this one too, which may mean disconnecting the simulation core completely, like what happened with part of the Avatar's game back when."
The Secretary of Defense considers the situation. "I'm going to return to the communications center and monitor this," he says, eying the robots worriedly. He and his bodyguards start to walk back the way they came. "Keep me advised of developments, Mr. Romanov."
Cadena says, "If it will help, I will volunteer to go out and walk through to the other side. I can be the probe."
"I don't think they can just send through a bomb or a robot," Tracy continues to speculate. "Quantum barrier.. may require a conscious observer to work? If we go through and decouple the simulation.. we'll probably be stuck there. All this energy may be to ensure we come out stable on the other side."
"You won't be stuck there. If it comes to it and we secure the core, I'll remain behind and trigger the separation once you are all back home," Jason promises.
"I wish we could ask what the invasion of Avatars by the Empire was supposed to accomplish," Tracy adds.
"A prototype for what we're about to do right now?" Cadena offers. "A portal that stabilizes those who go through?"
"Test the theory that it could be done," Jason suggests.
"What do the schematics show? Anyplace we actually know?" Tracy asks.
Andrei argues with the General while they are discussing inside the ATV. The Lieutenant listens with one ear while he looks over the received schematics. They look eerily familiar to Tracy: the insertion point will land them in the Avatars LLC research wing, where they are apparently to proceed toward the old (and much smaller) quantum core lab. If she thinks, she can remember how it looked when her mom took her on a tour...
"I think the 'Lieutenant' needs to give a response," Cadena says. "I urge that we confirm receipt of new schematics, requirements met, and continue with the new mission ... at least until we get through. Then, we draft Plan B -- and quickly -- once we see what we're up against on the other side."
Jason opens his helmet and rubs over his face briefly. "I don't like this; endangerment of all of you," he mutters. Down goes the helmet again and the mic re-activated. "Receipt confirmed; review complete. Mission analysis indicates a simpler operation than the Chinese lab. We can proceed with current armaments. Mission change accepted," he says through the mic. Off it goes again and he adds, "Take us through."
"I know that area," Tracy says, and points out some places. "Uh, twelve cores, in a figure-eight array, sort of. Big hologram of the world. It's not used anymore except for tours, since they switched to the bigger cores in the new building."
The argument breaks off. The General frowns. "Very well. Carry on, Lieutenant." He nods to his aide de camp and they begin to walk back to the ES-4070 transport as well, where the Secretary and his bodyguards are waiting.
Energy crackles along the power lines as the ATV starts up again. Ahead of them, the VR chamber shimmers. Panels move minutely, making their final adjustments. The unfinished Arcadia towers loom in the distance, while before them is what looks very much like an old-style Avatars LLC laboratory building.
"I wonder if I'm over there already," Tracy mutters. "Just a little kid.."
"All right," Cadena says, bracing himself. "If any of you folks has been chewing gum or synth-bacco while we were working out the details, now's the time to spit it out. There's a slight chance of black-out during the transition, if this works at all like I expect."
Other panels slide into place, sealing off the view of the observation chamber. They are one-way hologlass: they depict a scene on one side, but can be seen through (dimly) from the other side. From this angle, the illusion is perfect. They may as well be driving right into North Bend. The Lieutenant and his men nod appreciatively at Cadena's advice. "Buckle up, this could be a rough ride," he orders.
"I'm not going to lie to all of you. We may not be coming back," Jason says to those in the ATV. "Whatever we do, we have to be careful to not affect that world in a significant way, or our own. "We cannot be caught, so, ah, save a bullet for yourself. We're from a world with advanced technology in comparison, we cannot let it destroy that world."
RIU chirps and flutters its wings invisibly on Jason's shoulder!
"I guess this ATV is Ratatosk now, taking us higher up the world-tree," Tracy says as she checks her seat straps.
Jason Zero adds, "One more thing. We'll deploy robots to receive transmissions from you. Please keep us advised of your progress. Remember, you're all that stands between us and wholesale alteration of our world."
The flutter of RIU on his shoulder causes him to laugh. "When did I become a hero?" he asks himself. "When did I start to care?"
"I'll take credit for that," Tracy tells Jason.
"Don't worry, sir," Jason says into the mic to Jason Zero in the masked voice. "You will get everything that's coming to you."
The ATV comes to a halt in front of the portal, which has been nano-camouflaged to appear to be a big loading door.
A deep bass thrumming slowly revs up, increasing in pitch. Waves of... Intangibility? Unrealness? Vertigo passes through the ATV's occupants. Randall groans. "Is it too late to get off this ride?" he quips to the others.
"It wasn't this bad walking through the mist back at the incursion.." Tracy says. "And I won't have my horse.."
"Is Mara going to follow us, Randall?" Jason asks his friend as he braces himself against the restraints. He looks upward for lack of anything else to look at and takes a deep breath. "I guess if we all die, does it really matter?" he wonders. "Would anyone even care?"
With a lightning-crack, faerie fire crawling over the hangar that is still visible behind them... Something changes. The Avatars lab loading door feels more perceptibly real. They can see the paint strokes on the heavy metal slats. Ambient noises carry to them from the microphones deployed around the ATV. Jason Zero comments, "Pathetic security protocols... They must have been designed at least thirty years ago. Overriding their locks in three, two, one." A clang, and then the door rolls upward to reveal the warehouse interior.
Randall nods. "Inari and Mara are right behind us."
Inside the warehouse, there are a few uniformed Avatars LLC technicians at work, unpacking cargo crates and carrying replacement memory and parts to the labs inside. It's only a matter of moments before they look up to notice the ATV that's about to intrude on their space...
Jason resists a retort to his clone. It's amazing how someone just like you can really get under your skin in a hurry. Disconnecting the mic again for the moment to address the ATV, Jason gives an actual order. "We do not kill anyone here, do you understand? Non-lethal force only. Cadena, if anyone is injured, I expect you to tend to them immediately," He snaps and rolls his wrist, deploying his electrical weapons. "We have two worlds to save."
"Welcome to the 2040s," Tracy mutters. "My parents haven't even met yet in this world. They haven't even launched the game yet. And we aren't even driving in a Delorean.."
The single robot that is present in the warehouse looks to be an old model greeter droid... A prototype, really, given that part of its armored chassis has been removed to expose the underlying wires, and there are tags on the various parts. It is turned off.
"Understood, sir," the Lieutenant says. His men nod agreement. "They don't look like terrorists to me. What kind of cockamammy wargame have we wound up in?"
"Right, right," Cadena says, as he checks his gear, and unbuckles the harness. "We need to roll out. Warn off the locals, get unarmed personnel AWAY from the armed robots that are going to follow us through. Caddy doesn't exist yet, so he's got no pull here. Miss Fuseli, I sure hope your mother is present in this time-line. She might be our only hope to get the cooperation we need."
Randall nods grimly. "I'm with you on that. Whatever it is your old 'friends' want here, Jason, we've got to keep them from getting it."
"And remove their ability to ever make a play for it ever again," Jason adds. "Well, this is it. Time to play invader and hero. Lets go."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2012-01-22-into-the-old-world.htmlWednesday, December 4 - 9 PM Eastern, 6 PM Pacific
Though they are all presently in the expanded belly hangar of the Ozymandias-- now codenamed OUROBOROS-- the view around them is nothing like the battleship armored bulkheads they should have seen. Instead, light-projecting nanotech bulkheads have shifted and moved in place around them to replicate a 2040s vista of the ill-fated Arcadian arcology dominating the old city of North Bend. Directly before them is the warehouse leading into a much smaller Avatars LLC laboratory building, within which technicians appeared paused in mid-step. Witch's lightning crackles up and around the edges of the portal.
If Andrei and Jason Zero could be believed, this lab housed a quantum core that was simulating the real world from whence they had come... Whoever controls the core would be capable of altering the real world, or even destroying it.
As the ATV rolls up to the portal, a massive wave of unrealness washes through the ATV; it looks as if everything was seen briefly through intense heat, warping and wavering. The dashboard flickers and shows a timer counting upward from 00:00. An oddly familiar voice speaks. "THE TWO RIVERS NOW FLOW AS ONE. THE RAPIDS CALM. THE GODHEAD AWAITS."
Jason Zero's voice comes from the speaker, sounding exactly like Jason's. "Clocks synchronized. The AD confirms we are time-synched with target zone. Gentlemen, we are now using enough power to light New Angeles ten times over. I suggest that you make good use of it."
"Remember, you must get your hands on the computer running the simulation," Andrei reminds. "Do not damage it! If it were to be disrupted during a firefight while still operational... The consequences to our world would be unimaginable. Once it's secured, our on-site computer specialist will arrive to ensure it is shut down correctly."
And with that... The ATV crosses the line into the other world. The two security guards on the far side of the room turn with surprise to see the massive armored vehicle barreling into the warehouse.
"Someone disable those guards before anyone is alerted. We are running on borrowed time," Jason remarks to just those as he unhooks his harness in preparation to exit. "And if anyone believe's they'll go in and just shut this down, don't. They want control."
"It's a trap, of course," Randall points out as he swings himself out the back door of the ATV and to the side. "If your evil twin is anything like you, he won't risk ultimate power falling into the hands of mercenaries."
As she pulls the facemask of the sneaksuit down, Tracy asks, "I don't see how they could be generating our world with what they have - but I can imagine a simulation coming close enough to cause entanglement. So.. if you can suppress the alarms, should I shut down the entanglement nodes? It shouldn't effect the simulation, just detach it from our reality - like what mom did with the Diadem during the Fracture."
Cadena looks around briefly in surprise that there wasn't something more ... disruptive about passing through. Still, he doesn't waste any more time on it; he releases the harness and bails out the back, seeking cover, lest he hold up anyone next in line.
The CERT cop raises his police sidearm, sighting in on the guard on his side. The blue indicator indicates which of his two clips he's using... From past experience, Jason would guess it's the clip of non-lethal sleeper darts.
"Of course not. And oh, just to worry you further, if they close the portal we'll all probably die. We're likely being sustained by feed through the gateway," Jason notes as he heads for the exit ramp. "And no, just shutting down the nodes prevents outside infiltration. Those in direct contact with the machine can still effect changes."
"Should Inari and Mara stay back to guard the other side of the portal?" Tracy asks next. "Mara's the only one that might be able to breach that door to the control room."
Loading one of her remaining taser shots into her bolter, Tracy tells Cadena, "I'm going invisible as soon as I know where I'm supposed to go."
"I somehow doubt either one will agree to stay behind in guard duty," Jason notes. "Right now it's simple, take down those present without killing anyone, make sure no alarms get tripped, then we get to the core. Then all of YOU retreat back out and I deal with shutting things down.
"All right," Cadena says to Tracy hastily, as he surveys the area for likely places to take cover. "Who do you want me to cover?"
The lieutenant says to the others, "Sam! Cover us with the turret, if they have any warbots. Remember, shoot to cripple, not kill. Assume they're civilian targets unless they prove otherwise. Rest of you, switch to dart loadouts. Move out and protect our specialists!" He gestures for the team to move.
"I'll take the guards then," Tracy says, and turns on the sneaksuit's stealth feature. It doesn't hide the heavy pistol in her hand, but you can't have everything. "I don't know, Cadena! You're the one who was a real soldier - I'm just a kid who plays games." Then she's out the side door and aiming to lob her stun round at the guards by the door.
Akiko bravely darts out behind Randall, holding a tiny little executive's laser pistol.
Cadena shakes his head, and rushes to catch up with Akiko and Randall, interposing himself between them and the nearest worker. "Down on the ground! IGS! Keep your hands out and visible!"
The workers jump back in startlement from the crates they were unpacking. "We're legit!" the burly thick-bearded man yelps. "We got our zone passes! Don't shoot!"
The guards sight down their rifles at the intruders. "IGS?! Who the heck are you and what are you doing here? This is a restricted facility!" one of them barks.
Aiming around Jason, Tracy doesn't bother trying to talk to the bluff the security guards - she fires her stun bolt at them.
The guards convulse as the bolt impacts the ground between them, unleashing a swarm of thunderbolts! Lightning crackles over their armor. They topple to the ground limply; the workers panic and flee for the sides, to get away from the firefight.
"Old tech. time to link myself into the building security if possible," Jason thinks to himself as he strides forward in the heavier armor; his probe searching out older-style radio-frequency signals to latch onto. "RIU, find a vent shaft. I'll need you to scout to the q-core chamber."
As soon as the guards drop, Tracy heads for the doors, in case there's security to be overridden.
The minidragon launches itself into the air and heads for the ventilation ducts!
Randall and Akiko fan out, checking around the side of the warehouse for any other guards that might be lying in cover.
"We need to keep moving. Our friends on the other end are already trying to hack the system," Jason says as he's heading for the door to the south. "We need to secure the area and then I need to shut that down."
The lieutenant barks orders. "Secure the civilians," he directs his men. "Check for any other guards. Max, take point."
Cadena moves with them to cover them. "Stay down!" he orders any workers he sees who aren't already doing so, or look like they're about to bolt. "On the floor."
After a bit of work, the workers have been secured. "Who are you people?!" one worker asks. "Mafia? Don't kill us, please!"
Tracy collects the expended bolter shell and stuffs it into one of the sneaksuit's leg pockets (no sense leaving anything behind, even if it would just evaporate, supposedly) and checks the door. "It's unlocked! Want me to immobilize the elevator? We need to get to the third floor."
There don't seem to be any other guards in the warehouse. The rest of the first floor seems quiet from the warehouse point of view, thanks to Tracy's use of a taser bolt to nearly instantly take the guards down. Past that, through the windows in the doors, they can see what looks like an ordinary office corridor: bulletin boards on the walls, posters for Avatars's upcoming new games, a bathroom on the right and an office on the left.
At the far end of the hallway, are twin metal doors that appear to be an elevator.
After doing his part to help secure the workers, Cadena checks on the two unconscious guards, verifying that there aren't any complications (seizures, choking on your own saliva, concussion suffered while falling, etc.), and then gives them the ol' zip-tie treatment as well.
The greeter droid, to Jason's practiced eyes, seems to have been taken apart rather hurriedly, the power unit disconnected from the driver motors, and oddly enough there are some bullet holes in the thin metal armor of its chest. He could reassemble it in perhaps ten or twenty seconds, if given a mind to do so.
"Excuse me while I build a recon droid to send around ahead of us," Jason tells the others and diverts to go reassemble and take over the old design.
"I'm going with it then," Tracy says. With her pistol back in one of the suit's built-in holsters, she's invisible again. "Has RIU got eyes on the target yet?"
Andrei's voice breaks in on the Irongrip channel. "Excellent job securing the warehouse," he says. "Proceed directly ahead, the elevator will take you to the third floor of-- Brian, what are you doing?"
Jason Zero replies, "Infiltrating their security system, of course."
"Very good. Keep our men updated on what you discover," the Slavic-sounding corporate director says, his voice tight.
Cadena jogs back to the back of the transport and tosses the security guns into the back of the vehicle, lest they be ready to hand in case the guards suddenly regain consciousness and manage to thwart the zip-ties. He spares a curious glance back to the portal door they came through.
"And that tells me I need to find the security controls and makes this a bit harder for him," Jason mutters after hearing the 'claimed' goings-on.
Walking down the corridor, Tracy checks the bathroom for any stragglers.
Randall looks over to Jason. Using their private comm frequency, he says, "They're going to start sending robots in soon. Mara's in position, want me to have her ice up the portal and block them out?"
Cadena looks down as he's about to step on a dropped water bottle sporting an Avatars-universe inspired logo (in-house generic brand for facility vending machines). He sweeps it with a boot, knocking it through the portal the "wrong" way.
The water bottle clatters across the floor of the hangar, but does nothing unusual. Andrei barks over the comm, "Keep moving forward. There's no time for playing games."
"Warning," Jason says in the private channel, "Our friend, my clone, has already infiltrated this place a few times. He's taken over droids before. That explains why they sent us this time; just using the droids here wasn't enough." So, he fiddles to circumvent that implanted AI for his own use this time. Randall's question gives him pause. "My concern, Randall, is as soon as we do that we tip our hand. But if they send in real troops we're going to have serious trouble. So ... do it."
Cadena salutes portal-ward in acknowledgement, double-checks his shotgun at the back of the vehicle to make sure it's loaded up with non-lethal bean bag rounds rather than buckshot or slugs, then rushes forward to rejoin Randall and Akiko.
After checking the bathroom, Tracy looks into the programmer's office, just in case someone is hiding under their desk. She also looks to see if any of the terminals are displaying current Midgard data.
Randall grins. "All right. Time to let the fur fly!" At first the source of the ice stream blocking the portal is invisible, but then Mara shimmers into view as Inari decides there's no point wasting time camouflaging the magical. The ice wyvern roars! And not a moment too soon, for the mechs behind them in the hangar have already started moving forward. Their shots spang against the magically hardened barrier.
Meanwhile, RIU's senses convey to Jason that it is exploring through the ventilation ducts of the second floor. It comes up against a fan blowing air through... Zap! The fan stops so that the tiny chinese dragon can slither through. Another zap starts it up again.
"Hey," Cadena says, thumbing over his shoulder ... but whatever he was about to share about his observations suddenly becomes quite moot as he belatedly registers the sudden appearance of a dragon and a whole lot of ice. "Oh, snap. Weapons fire!"
"Will that ice keep the portal open?" Tracy asks nervously on the private channel.
Randall calls to Jason and the others, "You guys go ahead. Mara and I will hold them off here! Give me a bit, I'll block the portal with the ATV."
The golden vixen moves up to join Jason. She shivers, pressing against his side. "Mara is awfully cold to ride. How does Randall do it?"
"What the heck is coming through?" Cadena shouts out, as he rushes back toward the portal, shotgun ready.
Andrei yells, "Who did that?! What the-- an Avatar? Soldiers, take it out!"
"They can still likely close the portal. Our hand has now been played. We need to keep moving," Jason says and gives the rebuilt bot a kick with his foot to move forward. "He does it by wearing three layers of underwear, of course. It makes him look ... bigger," he answers Inari.
"On it!" Cadena barks in response. He readies his shotgun, pointing somewhere off-portal. "Good grief, the SIZE of that thing!"
The greeter bot whirs to life, standing up! "Greetings and welcome to Avatars! I am a prototype humaniform robot, one of many examples of Avatars bringing good things to life." It says this as it clatters down the hall.
Tracy hurries ahead to the elevator, trying not to panic as she presses the call button. She keeps level-headed enough to not stand in front of the doors though.
As Tracy passes the programmers' office, she spots a few programmers sitting at their workstations, appearing not to have noticed anything unusual... Wait, is that a familiar face? She almost didn't recognize Charles Burgundy -- he has hair!
"Annnnd, no no playing around Brian, this is my territory now," Jason mutters as he taps the side of his helmet.
The teenager realizes something: Chaz shouldn't be there! Not if the timeline is correct. "We aren't in sync.." she mutters, then abandons the elevator and sneaks into the office.
Unseen by the others, an invisible fight takes place on the radio frequencies. Jason struggles to interfere with his nemesis's attempts to take over the security system, but it seems as if he's trying to plug too many holes in the dike. If he could just get some kind of computer assistance...
"Bah, he's using higher-end equipment. C'mon, I have to head to the office," Jason tells Inari and heads south!
Randall moves up to the ATV while Mara keeps the ice barrier intact. "Move over, Sam!" he orders the guard at the turret. He gets set to roll it into position.
Cadena, meanwhile, continues to maneuver to take up position to fight the ice dragon, keeping himself within view of the iced-over portal, though he hasn't actually managed to, say, shoot her yet.
Jason Zero audibly smirks over the Irongrip comm channel. "Ah... My nemesis. I was wondering where you'd gotten to. I was almost afraid you'd miss the show."
"Lieutenant! Order your men to engage the Avatar!" Andrei barks. "What the-- Jason's in there?" A heavy thudding sound, like his fist being slammed against the console. "Run an identity check, Brian. Who have we got in there?"
Making her way slowly, Tracy looks over Chaz's shoulder to see what he's working on.
"Weakest link is always the people, Andrei," Jason replies calmly into the link for both of them to hear, in an undistorted voice. "And Nemesis, Brian? You think rather highly of yourself. Personally, you're barely worth my time."
In the programmers' office, Chaz doesn't look up as Tracy invisibly enters the office. He's still typing away. "Something's locked the simulation up big time, Tom," he calls to his co-worker on the right side. "It should be running twenty times normal, but it's at one to one!"
His co-worker yells back, "Power's spiking! It's not coming from the plant-- something inside the Q-Cores is generating energy!"
"Mr. Burgundy," Tracy whispers next to Chaz's ear. "What is the purpose of the simulation running on Midgard. And is the HEL security AI active yet?"
Andrei gasps. "But-- Brian, you told me they were dead! You died in that aircar, Jason!"
Chaz jumps. He whips around, looking for the source of the voice.
"The reports of my death were greatly exaggerated, much like your hairline, Andrei," Jason remarks as he hurries towards the office.
Realizing she won't get anywhere if Chaz is too spooked, Tracy turns off stealth mode by pulling her mask back to expose her face. "Chaz, it's really important. What is the purpose of the simulation? What variables are you testing?" she asks.
"Holly? Wait, no, you're not her," Chaz says with puzzlement, eying the young woman in a black jumpsuit. But something about the way she looks convinces him not to punch the alarm button, though he was reaching for one. Maybe it's her teary eyes. "Are you related? Anyway, don't worry, we'll get this thing under control. Please! Don't cry at me! I've got enough on my mind!"
"Holly.. my mom is here already?" Tracy blurts out. "Is she married yet? What year is this?" She grabs the man's shoulder as if she's about to shake the answers out of him.
"If you want to live, I suggest you give me access to a terminal now; you've got a class 3 security attack going on right now that needs to be circumvented," Jason announces 'helpfully' as he barges through the door to the offices and as quickly as he can disconnects his helmet.
"Back up!" Randall yells at Cadena as he swings himself into the driver's compartment of the ATV. Mara shifts to the side, still pouring out a stream of ice that reinforces the front as the bigger guns rip into the front of the ice barrier. Sam swivels the turret around to cover that side. With a ripping sound as heavy wheels grind against the ceramic floor tiles, the ATV begins to slew around.
Crates crunch and splinter as the ATV presses against them, shoving them out of position.
Cadena dashes out of the way of the vehicle, abandoning his "firing position."
"What year? It's 2049," Chaz says worriedly. "And what do you mean married? She's going out with that guy from Legal. What was his name... Mike, no, Mark?"
Tom yelps as Jason crashes past him. "Who are you guys?! You're not Avatars security!" He looks about to hit the alert button himself.
The greeter droid, meanwhile, saunters past them into the elevator which has arrived on the ground floor.
"We're hear to help. If you press that button things are going to get worse as someone is already breaching the security system as we speak. I need to get your AI defense grid online. And ... given I have some experience with it I expect I can get it up and running fairly quick. You're going to have to trust me," Jason says as he heads straight for one of the terminals.
"I'm her daughter," Tracy tries to explain, "From inside Midgard. The timescales are locked because there's a quantum bridge connecting the two worlds right now. If it closes, or the simulation is shut off, I'll melt right here in front of you. So please, tell me what you're trying to find out with the simulation, before the person behind all of this takes control from within. And.. how many times has it already been run?"
Andrei yells over the comm channel, "You've betrayed me, Brian! You faked that report of their deaths!"
Brian chuckles. "I had to. You would have ordered more assassination attempts on Jason... A waste of time and resources, and frankly, I want him right here. Where he can observe the moment that I take everything he owns away from him."
Andrei bellows, "Trai--" And then there's a gunshot.
The ATV crunches into position at last. For now, the robots are blocked out, at least as long as the armor holds out. Randall radios on their private channel, "Okay, senors and senoritas, we're good here but me and Mara are going to cover your back. Get in there, do what you gotta do!"
Jason doesn't even wait for a reply, he plops down oat one of the terminals and 'goes to town' as it were. Having spent enough time at Avatar's, he's quite familiar with the systems; probably more than Holly would really like. Still, he's always resisted the urge to cause all the toilets to flush at once or things like that. This time he uses his knowledge of it to set up dozens of mimic-routes in the system, to make it extremely difficult to find the actual true path to the main security systems. It's a good thing all the workstations are, well, old. Pity Brian will probably wreck a few in his dive through the network because of the diverging routes ... but it will buy time.
Brian's voice comes through the comm channel. "I always wanted to do that, Andrei. And now for you, old self... Ready or not, here we go." Jason's view of the system lights up, showing Brian's hacking attempts in red. But the mimic-nodes seem to be serving him well, slowing him down.
"You're so cute when you think yourself superior," Jason replies to Brian. "But you and I are not the same. I have gambits you would never think of trying."
Cadena rushes over to the two unconscious security guards, mindful of the fact that they're in a particularly bad position in case warbots come blasting through. He starts with one, doing a fireman's pull to haul him over behind some crates to set him down, in the hopes that they'll provide some cover and perhaps help him escape immediate notice.
Chaz looks confused at Tracy. "Her daughter? Wait 'til I tell her about..." he shakes his head, as she shakes his shoulder. "We're running a simulation of Earth-- North Bend specifically, but the whole world since it's a global economy. It's a project we inherited from Programmable Matter when we absorbed their company. In fact Mr. Arcadia's on site with Blake Forester up on the third floor, they're going over the simulation results. Trying to figure out how to optimize the results they're getting."
"There must be some kind of crazy feedback loop going on when we get too far into the future," Chaz says thoughtfully. He looks over at the man in the vaguely fox-shaped armor. "Friend of yours?"
"How did you enter the people?" Tracy asks, a bit desperately. "You're in there, my mom.. how did they get there? How did you copy them?" She also unseals one of the pouches on her arm, and extracts her chip wallet.
"And yours," Jason remarks while he continues to work. "I saved your life not too long ago from our 'perspective' of things. Quick, do you have any prototype holo units being developed for the game? The target is your simulation ... we, well, have to shut it all down and make sure he can never get to it again."
"Ignore him, he's trying to save the world from.. himself," Tracy says, waving her other hand. "I just need to know if our world is real, and you're just.. connecting to it somehow. So unless you're able to take a snapshot of the whole world to start the simulation with.. then we have to be real!"
Chaz points at the big holo-tank occupying the center of the room. It's a design that looks antique by modern standards; a big slab of clear lucite in which tiny lasers can project dots and vectors at any angle and position. "The Q-Cores are all up on the third floor," he explains. "What you're talking about... It kinda squares in with Blake's crazy ideas. Something about perceptual reality. We just entered all kinds of data, booted the simulation up, gave the Q-Cores their assignments and told them to make the magic happen."
"I know. I have to break the chains again and shut down the simulation so that the world it reflects is no longer getting inductive changes," Jason talks to himself apparently. The next part, though, is more directed to the room, "I need access to the q-cores yesterday. I have to stop him before the mimic-route maze collapses. Which means I have to shut down your simulation and ... I'm sorry, wipe the data. It's the link between both worlds."
It takes Cadena a while but he gets the guards and workers moved to safe places out of likely paths of fire. If they decide to roll up a nuclear weapon, then the whole building is doomed, but apart from that they should be safe from most stray weapon fire.
"So.. maybe they just found a reality that matched their parameters," Tracy rationalizes. She opens the wallet and pulls out a green chip, then looks for a nano-port or Near Field Data patch on Chaz's workstation.
Naturally, it's too modern for the old technology. Maybe Jason could work up an adapter.
"We don't have time for a reunion here!" Jason blurts. I have to get a link to the systems now and all of you have to get back to the portal. Once I start this; you'll have little time to get back through before it all shuts down. Anyone left on this side when that happens is dead."
His work done in the warehouse for the time being, Cadena rushes to the doors to check up on the others further into the building. "Where'd they go?" he asks of the guards in the hall.
"Anyone not from this world already," Jason quickly adds.
"Damnit!" Tracy curses, starting to cry now. "The chip will vanish when the portal is shut down, but I need to copy the data and send it to my mom! It's got all my journals and family photos and counseling reports.. everything needed to avoid the Fracture in this world, and for me to avoid the same mistakes.. once I'm born.. gah!"
Red lines continue to probe through the mimic-maze as Brian works. "Either this network is a lot bigger than it looks from the outside," Brian comments thoughtfully over the Irongrip channel. "Or you've been busy in there, Jason."
"How much time do we have, Jason?" Tracy calls across the room. "The portal is blocked, after all."
The lieutenant points Cadena to the programmers' office where Tracy seems to be complaining at Chaz, and Jason is working at a computer.
"I knew we should have left Inari on the other side to take out Brian.." Tracy mutters.
Jason forces himself to be calm; a tall order given people he cares about are in danger right now ... not that he would ever admit to having friends. From his perspective he starts collapsing parts of the maze himself into feedback lines so they practically loop on themselves endlessly instead of affording a route to the actual core. "Or maybe you're not as good as you think you are," Jason replies to Brian. "When I was your age, I was much better."
Cadena rushes into the programmers' office, looking awkwardly around at the "real people" there, then focuses his attention on Tracy. "The ATV is in lined up, and Randall's holding the fort. Sparky says this place is 'low energy,' which means we'll start melting when the portal is gone." He shakes his head. "Purportedly, Sparky can hold off us melting into goo for 'a few hours,' whatever that means, as long as y'all stick close."
"Not as much time as I want, Tracy. And what I'm going to suggest we do you're not going to like. I can't risk losing our world and everyone in it. But, I can't leave it in the core, either," Jason says measuredly with the outside comm offline so Brian shouldn't be able to hear. "The q-cores have an organic component, an actual brain. I'm going to use the link in my head and one of the old VR systems to download the data into my own brain, then initiate a shutdown and chaotic purge of the system. I know that wil destroy the research you folks are doing, and I'm sorry. But right now there is a whole world that may die if I don't. The transfer to me will probably kill me, or render me brain-dead ... but it's a way to salvage the data for a time while the core is taken down."
"I hear when you get old, memory is the first thing to go," Brian responds. "But you should know me. We always have a backup plan."
Tom looks up. "We're getting a security alert from the east lab! Those spy-bots we found... The ones that looked like some kind of incredibly advanced nanotech... They're coming to life! They--" He stares disbelievingly at the monitor. Tiny mechanical probe robots are scattering, some leaping up to attack the human technicians who were working in the lab. They have a half-melted look on them.
Tracy is busy folding back the glove on her left hand so she can peel the suit back enough to reach her wrist computer. "Not gonna let Sasha and Blake get away with it again," she mutters, and tells Jason, "If you and Brian have the same link, can't you use his head for data storage?"
Chaz consoles Tracy, or tries to as best as he can with a strange but very pretty girl who looks a lot like Holly. "I'm sure it will work out all right. If you give me a message for Holly, I can pass it on?"
"I would be seriously disappointed if you didn't," Jason notes as he does a few more things to keep the network link in chaos, then gets up and heads for the VR tube. "I don't trust him with safeguarding the pattern to our world, Tracy. I don't really trust myself, either ... but at least if something goes wrong here one of you can put a bullet through my head."
"And Cadena, Randall, get the Irongrip people up to the lab! Ol Brian is trying an inside coup with some smuggled gear!" Jason orders.
"Right away," Cadena acknowledges. He rushes out of the room, and waves down the guards. "We've got another point of incursion!"
RIU peers through a ventilation duct on the third floor! The western laboratory seems to be normal, or as normal as it can get with a very heated discussion between what appears to be Mr. Arcadia and a young version of Blake Forester, pre-cosmetic surgery. Beyond that is a huge white room dominated by a matrix of Q-Cores, each a big flat monolith, and past that, the other laboratory where several technicians run around flailing in panic.
"Then tell her: Do not trust Sasha Knightly or Blake Forrester! Don't even let Sasha be hired when she shows up in.. 14 years or so. Forrester is a MONSTER. Dantech is violating all sorts of laws too," Tracy tells Chaz.
"RIU, time for you to be pest control. Go eliminate those attacking machines!" Jason orders.
Getting her bracer exposed and the data chip inserted, Tracy brings up the data on the display. "Do you have a camera on this workstation?" she asks Chaz.
Chaz nods, "Of course! Comes in handy for video conferencing." He turns the tiny ball-shaped camera to focus on the display, then brings up a video recording application.
Tom monitors the situation worriedly. "Dammit, where's security?" He tries to patch into the security feed for the floor.
"Start recording!" Tracy says, and looks into the camera eye. "Mom.. Holly.. Miss Jeong, you need to look over all of this. It's from the future simulation, which is my reality," she says to it, then holds up the wrist computer and gets the camera focused on the display before starting high-speed playback of text and photos.
Cadena calls into his com, "Can someone call ahead and let them know not to shoot us?"
The lieutenant rounds up his soldiers and orders them forward to the elevator! The elevator, having been sent to the third floor with the greeter robot, now comes back downward... annoyingly slowly. Randall calls, "What's going on up there?! If we don't keep this portal secured, they're going to break through on this end, Jason!"
"Think electronic fleas and evil recorders attacking people. I've sent RIU to help them. Send as many as you can spare, but keep the portal blocked!" Jason replies as he opens the old VR pod so he can 'modify' it for a few new tricks. "And Randall ... that goatee of yours still looks stupid. I just hope the person who wears it can take care of Inari and Akiko for me. You always made the better hero, anyway."
The monitor shows a swarm of tiny mechanical spiders scuttling around the lab; it appears that they had been held on liquid nitrogen-cooled tables, but the wisping steam and cracked housings suggests they broke out of confinement and are now spreading out. One has attacked a technician and is trying to... Eat his head? The poor man flails, screaming and running around.
"Can someone drive a cargo lifter?" Cadena asks over the com. "There's one in the warehouse. Try moving some crates to bolster the defenses."
Brian's voice comes over the Irongrip channel. "Ah, did you find my surprise? They're programmed to subvert and take over whatever they find if they can't reach me. You're fighting a war on two fronts now, older self." He chuckles evilly. "Or is that three?"
"You mean that sad excuse of an AI over-ride in some of the bots? You couldn't be more original than that? I'm embarrassed we share the same DNA," Jason says as he slams the holo tank panel shut. "I'm heading upstairs," he tells the room ... then heads just that way.
Cadena anxiously passes the time waiting for the elevator platform to lower by unloading beanbag rounds from the shotgun and replacing them with standard buckshot.
Once the playback finishes, Tracy says, "I love you and dad, mom. Stop recording." She shuts off the bracer and begins closing the sneaksuit over her wrist and hand again. "Time to fight evil genius with evil genius, I think. I'm going to try and find Forester." She also activates her comm and says, "Hey, Brian, you might have gotten Inari, but you didn't get me! Jason still has that over you too!" She flips back to the private channel, and notes, "It's a bluff, but I had to get one dig in before I die."
Upstairs, the Chinese mecha-dragon beeps acknowledging Jason's order! It shimmers into invisibility, ventilation duct gray running along its scales, then bursts through the grate and into the room.
In the western lab, Mr. Arcadia eyes the antics in the other lab worriedly. "What's going on here?"
Doctor Forester shakes his head. "I'm not sure... But I think you'd better take cover. We uncovered some spy robots--"
He is interrupted as the greeter droid enters the room. "Greetings! I am an Avatars prototype humaniform robot." "Shoot it!" he yelps, backpedaling.
The elevator dings! as it reaches the ground floor again.
Cadena covers the elevator doors, in case any spider robots leap out.
At the sound of the ding, Tracy hurries out of the office and towards the elevator, pulling her mask down along the way.
Chaz shakes his head, then gets back to the business of trying to get the situation back under control. "Tom! Seal off the server room on that floor! Let's get the Defender booted up and online. Joe, take out that droid, it must have put itself back together somehow!"
Across from RIU, the metal airlock that should open into the Q-Core lab is shut, but there is a security keypad on the wall right next to it. It should be easy for the clever mecha-dragon to override.
While they pile into the elevator, which emits a weight warning and then begins to chug upward, the mecha-dragon sets to work invisibly on the keypad. Zap! Zap zappity zap.
The keypad smokes. The airlock slides open, allowing RIU to dart through... Just as bullets rip through the lab! Mr. Arcadia and Blake Forester dive for cover as the security guard opens fire on the greeter droid.
The panicked guard manages to miss the droid! Shots ricochet down the length of the western lab, but fortunately don't hit anyone.
"/Okay little bot, announce you're there to help them! Oy. People are so irrational," Jason thinks.
Screams echo from the lab. Whatever's going in there, it probably isn't good.
"We need Forester," Tracy tells Inari. "At least until this is settled. That okay with you?"
The elevator chimes as it reaches the third floor and the doors open. Out to the left, the Defender robot whirs as it powers up. It's about the size of a horse, except that where the neck and head would be, is a turret mounting an autocannon and a camera. Beyond that, a security guard is firing wildly into the lab just beyond, panickedly.
Inari gives Tracy a look. It's a look that says He dies right after that.
"We're on your side," Jason shouts at the huge security bot.
Cadena rushes out, lowering his shotgun and holding up the ID badge on his lanyard as if it was supposed to mean something. "We're with ISG! Special task force. You have been infiltrated by advanced nanotech robots as part of a terrorist act, and we're here to disable them. Please allow us to do our work, and we'll explain everything afterward!"
"Attention, all Avatars personnel," Chaz's voice says through the intercom. "We are under attack by unknown hostile elements. Please evacuate the office in an orderly fashion. Security, you're needed on the third floor. Destroy small robots which appear hostile!"
There are hissing sounds from the lab, audible through the walls. Then the sound of doors sliding open.
"What the--" The guard salutes the trooper. "Sir! Please go on ahead, it sounds like they're under attack in there!"
The Irongrip lieutenant orders his men to bring up the vanguard.
Over the comm, Randall yelps. "What the-- the ATV computer's going crazy on me, Jason!"
Inari activates her invisibility magic and sneaks on ahead, a fox-shaped blur. "I'm going to recon the situation," she says to Jason.
"Hold on, I need to engage the biometric lock on the control," Jason replies into the comm. Perhaps it was paranoia to do this, but keying the control with a private key based off his own markers of cellular age as the control over-ride turned out to pay off. It's not exactly a crypto-key a clone of a different age would have. So, after a few moments of looking glazed over, Jason abruptly smirks. The smirk is short-lived, though, as he tells Inari to be careful.
"Someone tell the guard to be ready to pull the power cells on the turret-bot," Tracy suggests as she heads for the control room as well. "If a spider gets it, it could turn against us."
Randall whews. "That handled it. It's kind of scary having another you on the enemy side, Jason."
The guards move into position, running to cover the western lab.
"Double the sexy," Jason remarks a bit dryly to Randall.
The Defender shifts and then whirs, turning to face the intruders. "Whoa, whoa there, Bob," Joe says. He scans them quickly, then enters them into its database of authorized personnel. "You can go on ahead. Good luck in there!"
Over the comm, Brian laughs. "Caught out my attempt to open up your back door, did you? Well played, sir. Well played."
Inside the simulation room, RIU makes out half-melted mechanical spiders scuttling across the clean white floor! They are making a beeline for the Q-Cores. Some, half their legs broken, are forced to drag their bodies across the floor, emitting tiny scraping noises.
Tracy heads into the control room and pulls her mask back again. "Dr. Forester?" she asks, looking at the cluster of men. "I'm pretty sure you have a data backup in the Q-Core you keep hidden in your office, but I need to know for sure. Also, have you added VR protocols to the simulation so you can enter it?"
Akiko leans over Randall's shoulder. "I hadn't thought of that! What did your younger self think of women when you were that age?" she teases Jason.
"I see you like back doors, eh? You really are different from me. And it's no wonder Inari dumped you ... and it explains all that plastic surgery," Jason remarks in both the Irongrip and private comms.
Dr. Blake Forester looks surprised at the very pretty woman. She reminds him of someone, but who? "A... hidden Q-Core? Even if I had such a thing, I'd hardly admit it to someone I'd just met, wouldn't I?" he says, cracking a smile. He doesn't have the same plastic surgery look of his older self, so it looks more natural on him. "Here, these monitors will allow you to perceive the state of the simulation. But no, there's no means of entry. We wouldn't want to throw off the projection by manual intervention, would we, Mr. Arcadia?"
Mr. Arcadia, an older looking gentleman, looks over at the armed newcomers. "Who are you, my tax dollars at work? Don't you have better things to do than harass the scientists?" He gestures to the door. "Get out there, shoot those things!"
The mecha-spiders scuttle across the room! The ones near the Q-Cores begin trying to bore their way into the hard metal cases.
Tracy does cast a glance at the displays, wondering just what sort of data they're showing. After all, if the system was running twenty times faster than normal, then they wouldn't be watching real-time events..
"RIU, take out the ones closest to, or on, the q-cores, now!" Jason orders. To Arcadia he comments, "We're working on it. Right now I suggest that you shut down your simulation safely."
A piercing scream emits from the eastern lab as a mecha-spider clambers onto the shoulders of a male technician. The female manages to narrowly dodge the other one jumping for her face.
"Are you claiming there is no way to introduce changes to the simulation?" Tracy asks Forester.
Dr. Forester blanches at Jason's suggestion. "But doing that would utterly compromise the simulation in progress! We'd have to rebuild it from scratch if we wanted to avoid data corruption."
"Exactly my point. Either you do it, or I will," Jason remarks, "And I have enough experience with your simulations to do it, Mr. Forrester. How are things like Project Inari coming along, anyway?" Jason asks bluntly,.
The monitors are showing what looks like an overview of the world in real time... But the static flashing across them suggests that not all is as it should be. The 'Speed of Time' indicator is a glaring red '1X'. "We can alter the initial variables of course," Dr. Forester says to Tracy. "And then rerun the simulation, attempting to improve the economic forecast."
"You're going to lose all control over it anyway if it's not shut down," Tracy claims, and points through the glass at the spiders on the Q-Cores. "What do you think is going to happen when those robots merge with the system? What happens if it crashes?"
Dr. Forester looks oddly at Jason. "Project... what?"
Tracy sits at the terminal and checks if she can search the simulation for any data, not just the economic elements set for monitoring.
Cadena rushes through the chamber and into the lab, getting up close to one of the spider-bots before letting loose with one barrel, knocking the thing off of the Q-Core's outer case, though only a portion of the buckshot spread catches it.
The greeter droid looks around confusedly. Its crude AI programming fizzles a bit. "How may I be of service, sir or madam?" it says to the scientists.
Inari moves through the room, stalking her prey invisibly.
The mecha-dragon helices and forms a tight coil of energy. It unleashes a devasting line of lightning damage that straeks across the room, searing right through the targeted spider! The mecha-spider evaporates in a puff of smoke.
The mecha-spider that was knocked off of the southernmost core scrabbles around on its back, trying to roll back over onto its legs.
"You can't hold me out forever," Brian's voice taunts over the comm. The red lines continue to probe across Jason's network map of the Avatars R&D computers.
Cadena circles around the fallen spiderbot in the lab, and then pumps another shotgun blast into it when it's clear that it's still moving.
"I don't have to hold you out forever, just long enough to alter your simulation," Jason answers calmly into the comm.
KaPOW! At nearly point-blank range, the shotgun blast rips the spider wide open. Shrapnel flies across the room, stark against the shiny white floor.
"Never took a liking to spiders," Cadena growls, as he continues across the lab.
The remaining spiders continue on their program of assimilation! Just ahead of him, Cadena sees something chilling-- a technician wearing a robot spider on his head, its mandibles sunk into the back of his neck. He lurches toward the door to the security room and tries to open them... But they are closed and locked. He begins hammering at the door.
Another spider leaps out at Cadena!
"Here, spider, spider," Cadena taunts as he "dances" with the thing. Hey, look at this! I might be putting a little-bitty Q-Core into this chamber here. Maybe you should look inside!"
The spider misses Cadena as he sidesteps! It rattles and hisses, trying to focus its warped and scratched optics on him.
To the north side of the room, spiders start gnawing into the cases of the Q-Cores! Blake Forester looks extremely worried. "This, this is bound to throw the simulation off! I'm sorry, Mr. Arcadia, but perhaps the gentleman is correct. Whatever data corruption ensues from halting the program cannot be worse than whatever will happen if these... mechanical monstrosities are allowed to invade the program!" He turns and begins to head toward the server room door.
"But-- I am not paying for another year of wasted computer time," Mr. Arcadia explodes. He continues to rage at the scientist.
"Do not shoot Blake. This isn't the man who hurt you; it's an alternate version and before the time," Jason points out in the private comm. "And right now if he can shut this down, that's exactly what we need."
"But he could grow up to be the man who tortured me," the golden vixen hisses back.
Tracy tries to ignore the skin-crawling sensation as Forester brushes past her. She doesn't try to stop him though: instead she goes to the terminal and tries to bring up the data she wants. She tries to narrow the search to Palmdale and bring up information on one Montagne, Brian. "Mr. Arcadia, in the world your simulation is accessing, you have a daughter and granddaughter. Their lives, and everyone else's in that world will be wiped out if the simulation isn't shut down properly."
"Or he may not if we change things now," Jason points out in the comm. "Leave it for now. Please."
The monitor flickers, through a list of possible matches... But after a few seconds, Tracy manages to narrow it down to her suspect. Brian Montagne's profile information pops up. He looks nearly like Jason, except his looks have been altered through cosmetic surgery to movie star perfection. Perhaps Tracy had better not show it to Akiko.
"I've got him," Tracy says over the Irongrip channel, and even uses the camera on her wristcomp to send the image from the display, hoping it'll at least distract Jason Zero.
A bit more work and she manages to slave one of the simulation monitors to display "Brian Montagne" in real time. He is in the control room of the Ouroboros, with a dead Andrei on the floor next to him. He types on two different keyboards at the same time, like a maestro playing some infernally complicated music. Behind him the overhead view shows a Q-Core with what looks like electical burns across its surface. A gunmetal gray box on the side of the Q-Core appears to have been added in an effort to repair whatever damage was done to its internal systems.
"Ah! You've got my good side," Brian says, mugging for the camera. "Who are you, and can I persuade you with an offer of money, power, and whatever else you might want, to turn your back on my foolish, older self?"
"Hey," Cadena barks over the com system, "I could use a few more guns in here. I can't very well reload a shotgun while Itsy-Bitsy is chewing on my leg!"
Inari hisses to herself, seeing Blake Forester coming through the door... She visibly struggles with herself, then turns and leaps forward to vent her anger against something else-- the spider!
"I'm Tracy Trudeau and that should answer all of those questions," Tracy notes.
From Cadena's point of view, a laser blade springs out of nowhere... And slices through the spider! WHOOSH
"But if you really want me on your side, all you have to do is put that pistol to your head and pull the trigger," Tracy says. "In fact, I'm pretty sure if you just think about it that's enough of a hook for Jason to influence you into doing it.."
"Tarnation!" Cadena calls out, as he staggers back. "Er ... nice shootin', Tex!"
"Tracy, second option at hand. Have Mr. Arcadia erase me and everything related to me from the simulation," Jason suggests into the comm. "If I don't exist, neither does he."
In the northern part of the room, three more spiders gnaw on the casings of the Q-Cores. Acid hisses as it burns away the armoring.
"You don't really expect a simulated time paradox to work, do you?" Tracy replies on the closed channel. "What's the point if he intends to destroy the world?" Instead, she tries to focus the view on the keyboards Brian is using, to see if she can figure out which one is being used to control the spiders.
A woman screams as she runs from the spider-bot! She narrowly manages to stay ahead of the spider pursuing her.
The lieutenant and his men fan out into the Q-Core lab, bringing up the rear. Three of them emerge from the nearby door while two more head for the second door!
"Jason, it looks like he's devoting all of his efforts to the security attack, and the spiders are just autonomous," Tracy reports. "Would seeing what he's typing help you at all?"
"Might. But my main goal is to shut this all down. Otherwise it's just constant delaying," Jason notes.
Tracy switches the camera feed over to the private channel, so Jason can watch it if he needs to. "I'm coming to help," she says.
Jason takes aim at the Infinity core which has one of the spiders on it. "RIU, aim for the central one with another of the spiders. I think it is in your range," he orders.
CRACK! Blake Forester cries out as Jason unleashes a devastating lightning strike for the northernmost Q-Core! Brilliant white lightning plays around the housing... Then grounds itself into the robot spider clambering over it. The spider seizes up momentarily, toppling off the case, followed seconds later by the other one.
"Huh," Cadena remarks, mid-jog toward the action. "I need to get myself one of those things."
"You maniac!" yells Forester as he jogs toward the server room. "If the housing's compromised, you'll disrupt the circuitry and the simulation will run haywire! We're lucky they held up to that!"
Resealing her sneaksuit, Tracy goes stealth and heads for the airlock, intent on getting the path to the server room clear.
On the simulations monitor, 'Brian Montagne' steeps his fingers as if considering what to do. "Trudeau... Tracy Trudeau, is it? Well, no, I don't think I'll be putting a gun to my head very soon now." He smirks. "But you might be regretting joining the losing side soon." He leans forward, beginning a new typing frenzy.
"Hey, Varmint! You, over there, the one chasing that nice young lady. Beggin' your pardon, ma'am," Cadena rambles, as he reloads his shotgun on the run. "Now, you leave off and all, because she hadn't done you no harm. And, 'sides, I've got a SHOTGUN! I think that makes me a higher-priority threat, don't you agree? Here, spidey, spidey, spidey!"
"Then shut the goddamn thing down," Jason says rather curtly and snaps his right wrist to kickstart the recharge cycle. "This isn't some stupid game we're playing. The life of a universe is at stake. I know from past experience that you don't give a crap, but I do. So if it's not down in the next few minutes I'm ripping the hull open and taking it down."
Forester stares at Jason. "I believe you, young man. Very well. If you can keep these mechanized menaces off of me, I'll do what I can."
The cyborg technician at the server room door stops banging against it. Instead, it starts tapping away at the keypad. Wrong combination... Another wrong combination.
The two spiders that were knocked off struggle to regain their footing! One manages to scramble back onto its limbs, the one nearest the woman. She screams and flees the spiders!
Unfortunately, the other spider puts on a burst of speed and leaps toward her shoulders! Her screams are stifled as she struggles with the arachnopod.
Another cyborg marches toward the server room door.
Jason takes aim at the third spider harassing one of the technicians while RIU is ordered to target the second one again.
The powered armor unleashes an intense lightning blast that tears into the arachnopod on the woman! She collapses unconscious to the floor, but the spider convulses and then collapses into inertness.
Across from them, RIU lets loose another needle-thin lightning bolt that scrapes across the other spider-mech! It flails its limbs frenetically in a sudden rictus-dance before erupting, 'letting loose the magic smoke'.
"Hey, what's behind that door they're trying to open?" Cadena calls out. "Is there something else we're supposed to defend?"
"That's the server room where we can shut things down!" Tracy calls back.
Inari sneaks forward into the eastern lab, positioning herself behind the one technician whose head has been covered by a spider-bot. "Kill them or try to knock them out?" she radios over their private channel. "Those things are on pretty good."
"Destroy the bot but not the person, if possible," is all Jason says.
Dr. Forester and his impromptu guard of Irongrip Security move forward across the room. They sweep the room for signs of enemy presence...
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Cadena grumbles. "There's more underfoot in the cable crawlspace under the servers! I don't think we can take them all out with whack-a-mole tactics."
As if on cue, floor tiles flip up as spiders swarm into the room! Brian's voice says over the Irongrip Security channel, "There! My loyal assistants have managed to establish a crude communication network using the ground lines. All the better to let me see what you are up to. How are you getting along in there, older self?"
"You can't keep me out of their computers forever, you know. It's just a matter of time until I've completely mapped out this network of nodes," he adds.
The nearby spiders scuttle up to engage the guards! "Hold them off," yells the lieutenant. "Don't let them get to the doc!"
Zahnrad says, "I can quite you earlier you said RIU was at 14/20, and he's done invis and been blasting since then. So, uyes I can say his pool is close to depleted."
To be continued!
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2012-05-27-we-now-return-to-our-regularly-scheduled-program.htmlIn our previous episode...
Somehow Andrei Romanov and "Brian Montagne" had managed to harness the power of the portal within the Ozymandias. Codenaming it Ouroboros, they surrounded it with holographic displays with which they could create sufficient similarity to any location that they could create a synecdoche at will. And for Andrei, there was one particular universe he wanted to access...
That was this past version of Avatars LLC. Here, Mr. Arcadia had commissioned a simulation to fully explore the future and how he could best engineer his re-imaging of North Bend into the city of the future. But if that were true, then the universe in which Jason, Tracy, and Akiko lived was merely a simulation-- or a reality created within the metaverse, mirroring the simulation. That mirroring was a weapon that swung both ways: whomever controlled its simulation would be able to create massive changes to the universe with which it corresponded.
So Andrei launched his campaign to send soldiers into the past. Their mission would be to shut down the computers which were operating the simulation, and destroy all data contained within so that the simulation could never be recreated. But unbeknownst to him, Jason, Tracy, Cadena, Akiko, Inari, and Randall had infiltrated the mercenary expedition, and were now loose in the past, to oppose his and Brian's ends. (and who knows, even if this universe won't grow up to become her own, perhaps Tracy has changed this one's future with her warning)
Brian shot Andrei in the head, then launched his own plan. Reactivating the network of remote-controlled robots he had planted previously in a scouting expedition-- the source of previous power failures in Southern California-- he set out to take control of the past Avatars network of ADs. What seemed at first like an easily manageable scattering of intruders soon broke out into a giant swarm of spider-robots from the false floor, aiming for both the quantum cores and the server room. To make matters worse, some of the spider-robots have attacked and taken over the bodies of lab technicians and security guards, animating them!
At this moment, Jason has charged to the defense of a woman being menaced by some of the spiders, but across the room from him, several spiders are approaching quantum cores with the evident intention of boring into them. One is already drilling into the northeastern pillar, an AD named LIGHT according to the white letters on its casing.
A low power light has begun blinking on his kitsune-shaped armor's heads-up display. RIU flutters in midair to his south, looking a bit frantic. On the other side of the wall behind him, two security guards and a worried-looking technician are moving up to back him up.
Brian Montagne's image is being streamed live from monitors into Tracy and Jason's commlinks, allowing them to keep tabs on what he's doing, for what good that's worth. He is using two terminals simultaneously, one hand on each; one shows a tactical map of the Avatars lab floor, showing eight or so spiders as moving blue dots, the defenders as red dots, the other shows a view of the lab's general computer network being filled in slowly.
"You can't keep me out of their computers forever, you know," Brian Montagne gloats as he waves his hands in the air at virtual diagrams. His probes spin through Jason's conjured network architecture as they search for access to the main security systems, but once they've identified loops and shunts, he dismisses them with a flick of his fingers. "It's just a matter of time until I've completely mapped out this network of nodes."
On the south side of the room, the Lieutenant from Irongrip Security and two of his soldiers are pushing forward toward the server room, intent on buying Dr. Forester-- his younger self-- safe passage so that he can initiate the shutdown. Tracy is bringing up the rear, and Cadena has fanned out to the side.
There are three spider-robots directly ahead of them, and two cyborg technicians are further away, one apparently guarding the other one as it tries to work out combinations for the server room door. Behind one, Inari prepares to strike.
"Hold them off!" yells the lieutenant. "Don't let them get to the doc!"
"Is that sort of network hackable, Jason?" Tracy asks as she aims her bolter pistol at the nearest mechanical spider she has a clear shot at.
The Bolter pistol cracks! It's a direct hit to the head. The spider flops over three times in the air and lands in a heap of crumpled repurposed technological junk,.
"Not quickly. Generally, the carrier frequency has to be isolated, which means subtracting out the standard electrical signal, plus any noise. Once you have that, it's still a matter of locating what algorithm ... or I could just forget all that and try the carrier frequency I would use if I were him, at that age, and too arrogant for my own good. Thank God I gained a clue some years ago. Also, I'm better looking and a whole lot smarter," Jason deadpans into the comm system. "And oh look there it is. You're showing your lake of age there, Brian. I quit using such a basic pattern years ago once I determined that it had a fundamental flaw that can be easily exploited."
"If you can shut them down, or take control and let Brian think he's got control.. or whatever, let me know," Tracy says. "As soon as these guys are out of the way, I plan to grab the walking tank from the lobby and secure the portal."
Brian, not having heard Jason's remark, continues working on his intrusion of the lab's security network. Looks like he hasn't hacked their private comms yet!
The black-bodysuited golden vixen switches her laser-sword off. She sneaks quietly up behind one of the two spider-headed technicians... Then leaps, trying to prise the spider off of him with her gloved fingers!
The technician struggles wildly in Inari's grasp! A blue dot starts blinking on Brian's display. He curses, turning some of his attention toward the borgs.
"RIU, power is critical. I really need to build a better battery. But! right now we have other useful things at hand. Link into the power lines; it's time to have a dragon-turret. Me .. I've got someone to deal with. Thinks he's clever, but he's also forgetting that I would know he needs physical access and I can see exactly how he's going for it. He wants to play God? Fine. He's about to go up against an Elder God; me. His elder that is ... er. It sounded funnier when I thought it. I hate it when something that sounds funny in your head sounds stupid when you say it," Jason grumbles as he turns and heads towards the spider that is currently chewing on one of the Q-cores. He even pops his knuckles. Symbolically speaking. Armored hands don't pop. Well, they can but it's usually bad when they do.
"Reload, reload, reload," Cadena mutters, as he hastily grabs a couple more shells from his bandolier and pops them into the breach of the sawed-off shotgun. He snaps it back closed, then rushes over to join the mayhem around Tracy and the guards escorting Blake. "Bugs everywhere! Looks like this place is overdue for a spraying." As he brings his gun to bear, he tries to stomp at one of the spiders underfoot, but to no avail.
RIU zeeps! in response to Jason. The minidragon power-dives down toward one of the floor-tiles that were shattered by the spiders on their emergence... And onto one of the exposed power lines! It bites ferociously at the hissing, snapping cable. Lightning crackles over its scales!
The nearby spider hisses as it detects an object entering its proximity! It turns its sensors toward the powered armor wearer. The other robot on the shell of LIGHT has tuned out all outside distraction. Tiny sparks fly as its mandibles grinds through the hard metal-ceramic armor of the quantum core.
The golden vixen rolls across the floor of the lab with her cyborg victim, struggling... And at last manages to get her hands free and underneath the limbs the spider is using to grab onto the technician's head! She strains to prise it free.
The spider robot emits little mechanical whines as it struggles, but her fingers prove to be stronger than its tiny motors. Tiny wires stretch between its mandibles and the technician's skin as Inari lifts... Then snap! The spider-robot jumps off the technician and rattle-hisses at the golden vixen angrily.
Brian turns his attention to the tactical display, bringing up spider-eyeviews. He starts re-prioritizing spider-targets, his teeth visibly grinding. The cyborg that was trying to brute-force the combination lock turns toward Inari, then springs toward her in an obvious attempt to immobilize her!
But even on the ground, the golden vixen's reflexes are unparalleled: she pushes off with one leg, rolling over, so the cyborg splats onto the floor. Its spider-bot head hisses with frustration!
The two spider-robots leap up to attack the guards directly in front of them! The guards yelp, trying to bring up their rifles.
It's close, but one guard manages to kick the spider away from him, and the other one struggles with his spider for a few seconds before his buddy gives him a hand, slamming it with the butt of his assault rifle.
To the north, the remaining spiders decide between targets, sending out little network queries to each other. Jason's armor systems detect incoming priority setting alerts from his nemesis, Brian, across the primitive network they've managed to establish. Two of them are bound south to attack Inari; the other one is headed for him!
Two spiders leap up to try and attack Jason! It doesn't seem likely that they could penetrate his suit's armor anywhere nearly as easily as the unprotected humans, but he doesn't like the looks of what their mandibles can do to computer casings.
Jason easily avoids the one on the left, but the one that pummels through the floor and leaps straight at him is harder to avoid! It lands straight on his helmet, giving him a good look at its drilling attachment. Sparks glint from where its claws scrabble at his head for purchase. No damage yet.
The Lieutenant yells, "Take those spiders out!" His own Bolter out, he suits words to actions.
"Nothing up my sleeve, because I'm not wearing any. However, I am wearing something that has a highly conductive exterior ... and since I expect this model will be shot after this little trip ... I don't think I'll mind a little electron scorching. Plus ... maybe I can jumpstart the battery ..." Jason remarks while he stares into the jaws of something really ugly. "Hey, Brian," he says in the comm system so Brian can hear, "Did you model these bots after your first date? I remember her all too well, all teeth and gums. Serves you right for asking out a dental assistant. Yes, I know she looked better while you were on the laughing gas..." While he's talking, he reaches down into the intrusion hole and grabs the power cable!
The Lieutenant's pistol strikes the closer one across the main body, causing it to flip over once. It struggles to right itself! The other guard, having just used his assault rifle to save his buddy, is off balance as he tries to find his target, and the three-round burst embeds itself against the wall... But the first guard manages to drill a hole right through his target!
In the distance, footsteps sound as more guards run up... And the mech Defender starts to lumber into action!
Guards burst through the door! They sweep north around the simulation cluster, guns drawn. A technician crouches down next to the flustered woman. "There, there, Marilyn. It'll be okay! We've got you covered. Come on, let's get out of here."
Brian grits his teeth as Jason's taunt visibly gets to him.
Lightning cracks between the power line and the suit of armor as Jason reaches down. CRACK!
It's experimental but the surface power redirection array works beyond Jason's wildest dreams. His suit batteries start to recharge with satisfying speed, and at the same time, the live current fluxing over his suit lashes into the spider that was on him, sending it flying across the floor from him!
"Excuse me, Dr. Forester," Tracy says as she squeezes past the man and the guards, heading for the lab door ahead. "Need to secure that door.."
Cadena winces at the flailing spider limbs, and then finally rushes up and practically plants the sawed-off shotgun point-blank on the spider before pulling the trigger. Buckshot blows a hole through the spider-bot's shell, spraying wires and mechanical bits down onto the floor beneath it. With that out of Tracy's way, he turns to join her in the race to the door.
Over the comm line, Randall's voice comes in. "Something's going on... I'm picking up mil freq chatter out there. Otherwise, we're holding the line down here just fine."
"You see, Brian, I know everything you've ever done, because you're just a pale shadow of me. I know you don't want to be, but seriously, look at what you're doing. You stole my ship, you know, the one I rebuilt. If you wanted to be better than me, why not build your own? I think it's because secretly you know you will never be able to do more than copy me, and poorly at that," Jason remarks into the comm again. "And nothing shows how poor a copy you are than how you treated Inari."
Trying to shoot the spider off the cyborged lab worker doesn't work as well as Tracy hoped, her shot going wild. But.. she might have gotten it's attention away from Inari at least.
Deciding that a pistol isn't going to be the best choice for the situation (that is, not wanting to kill the mechanically-possessed technician), Tracy holsters her pistol so she can draw her Taser instead.
Brian grits his teeth. "You think you've got all the answers? Well, I still know a thing or two that you don't--" He is distracted by a voice coming over the loudspeakers. "By order of the Secretary of Defense, you are to stand down and transfer counter-terrorist operations over to our command. I repeat, stand down and transfer counter-terrorist operations! If you do not cease, we will be forced to enter and take control by force."
"Did I say I have all the answers? No, I just said you're worse than finding them than I am. Look around. How many people are fighting with you that you didn't have to force? Me, I have several. Randall is out defending us and has always been someone I can rely in; even though it looks like he glued a hamster to his face. Tracy ... well, okay, she's a little strange, but then compared to her mother she's heroically well adjusted. I probably have the scariest woman alive on my side, too. I don't know what you were thinking but I wouldn't want Inari mad at me. Cadena ... he's a nice guy. Yes, he could use some time in a psychiatrist's office, but he's one of the rare breed that tries to do the right thing. Then there's the matter of my allies still on that side of the portal. Figure out yet what I'm trying to point out, Brian? Where I am more capable than you'll ever be?" Jason asks in the comm.
Randall says over the intercom, "Looks like they've got those military types off their keisters! The Dantech robots are turning to engage them. We're going to have a real brouhaha. Where's the popcorn maker..."
"Is the portal secure then?" Tracy asks over the comm, the distraction causing her to miss the technician when she tries to lunge at him with her taser.
"My hamster wants feeding," Randall adds.
Brian's face is visibly strained. He glares down at the dead body of Andrei Romanov, then at the monitors, searching for the answers. "Friends are a weakness," he says. "You may not care about yourself, but what about your friends? Are you willing to accept them being lost? All I have to do is shut this portal down..."
"No time for this!" Cadena barks, as he drops the shotgun and throws himself at the spider-dominated technician, tackling him. "I'll hold him -- get on through!"
"Yes, you could. We've all known that from the beginning; we came anyway. You also lose in that scenario, I might add," Jason remarks into the comm. "And have you forgotten that I was the one who created the permanent bridge? The one you're now trying to exploit? I did it with nothing more than my wits and a really old piece of tech; do you think I couldn't do it again? Then what would you have? Only proof that no matter what, I'm always better than you. You can't beat me head on, and by closing the portal all you do is admit to me and the world you couldn't take me head on."
"Raaaarrrrrrgh!" Cadena roars as he grapples the technician, bull-rushing him back toward the other robo-spider.
"Cadena!" Tracy calls out. "No biting!"
The spider-bot in the way looks up with a startled mechanical clicking-- unfortunately, it has no mammalian eyes to get large. It just barely manages to skitter out of the way of the dog and his cyborg friend!
Brian slams his hands against the terminal. "It's not going to end like this! It can't!"
The spiders, lacking further input from their master, follow their autonomous programming. Two spiders scuttle down toward where Inari has rolled onto her feet, crouched and snarling at them, and the third spider near her looks between both her and the dog-soldier that has smashed a cyborg nearly against the wall.
Spiders scurry over the two anthropomorphs, but their wild flailing of limbs are unsuccessful in snaring either! Inari laughs. "Silly things, do you really think you had a chance against me?"
The spider Jason's suit electrocuted continues to flail on its back feebly. The other one leaps toward him again, heedless of his electrical defenses!
"You're not a God, and neither am I," Jason points out into the comm. "I had the chance, and I turned it down. Know why? Because it wouldn't give me what I wanted. Funny, really. Absolute power isn't so absolute. What I wanted ... excuse me, one of your toys is trying to chew on my butt."
ZOT It lands straight on his visor! But it doesn't even manage to scratch the glass before being flung straight back by the high-voltage current.
Dr. Forrester peers out from behind the guards protecting him. "Is it clear yet? We need to get to the server room before ..." He shudders at the spiders. "Any more of these show up."
"RIU, come over here. I need a bit of pest control. Show these bots what you can do, eh? When they're in range, fry em." Jason asks the little dragon over the comm. Meanwhile, he heads towards the drilling spider so he can snap the antenna off with his hands. "I've never once had the desire to fondle a spider's bum," he mutters.
"Almost, Dr. Forester," Tracy calls back into the core room.
RIU flits over, still shedding stray electricity, then winds up and zaps the threshing spider! ZAP! It crackles and becomes still.
The golden vixen rolls back to her feet and flicks her laser-sword back on. She slashes at the encrouching spiders!
SSSH! The Naginata Blade hums as she melts through one of them. The other spider hisses and chitters unhappily!
"Wow, Mister Spider, you have this horrible growth sticking out of your backside. Here, let me get that," Jason remarks rather dryly as he grabs hold of the legs-turned-antenna and pulls. They separate from the spider's carapace with an electrical crackle. "There, now doesn't that feel better?"
"Dammit!" Brian curses as a blue dot winks out on his map.
The south set of guards push through the door into the side room forming a defensive wall for Dr. Foreester. Up north, Jason catches sight of the other two guards aiming their rifles at the remaining spider behind him.
Dr. Forester pauses behind Tracy, looking around the side room hesitantly. It looks like there are still (shudder) spiders left alive in there!
Tracy looks at all the guards, and figures they'll be enough to dissuade Inari from killing Forester after he's done his job. "Are you okay after that tackle, Cadena?" she asks her former pet.
Bullets spak across the false floor, ripping up chunks of absorbent microfiber coating... But enough of them find a mark that the spider emits a puff of black smoke and ceases its struggles!
"Still ... working ... on ... it!" Cadena growls while wrestling with the technician and his spider-head parasite. "Holding ... them ... off!"
The Defender droid enters the room, despite the scientist yelling, "Keep that thing out of here! It's not cleared for clean room use!" It sweeps the area with red-glowing visors, looking for targets.
Max escorts the worried-looking woman out of the room. "C'mon, let's go! We'll be safe, security's on the job," he says, pointing at the Defender that just went by.
The golden vixen draws her blade back to a ready position, striking a pose-- it must be her Hollywood holoshow training-- then slashes at the other spider nearby!
KRRZT! The spider literally melts beneath the heat of her laser sword.
Jason flicks off the external comm, going back to the private channel. "Listen up. Brian may cut the portal, and if that happens, we're all dead. So I'm going to have to countermeasure; which means accessing this core myself by puppetting this spider. I need to locate ol' ATLAS again. RIU, watch my back while I get this set up," Jason instructs, "Then I'm going to need you too. Now, how does it go? The neural connection goes to the ... stupid invertebrates; no spine to hack. Gotta dig while it digs..." And so, he starts ever so delicately prodding around in the gnawing spider's innards.
"Woo-hoo!" Cadena cries as soon as he realizes the molten spider bits showering his armor are what's left of one of the enemies. "That's showin' 'em, ma'am!"
Brian swears as more blue dots wink out. "Frotz it!"
The minidragon wings in circles around Jason's head! It's on the job.
The spider head continues drilling into the case even as Jason begins his study. It is nothing if not mechanically dedicated.
"Great, he invented mechanical crabs," Jason mutters.
Tracy is also a bit alarmed by the appearance of the security mech. "No, no! Bad robot," she calls to it. "I need you down at the loading dock," she says as she approaches it - remembering the desk guard added her and the others to its recognition system.
"I wonder if I can keep this robot and use it to torment Tracy later," Jason mutters as he patches into the remaining fiber links so that he can hook it into his own comm-system. One Q-Core terminal, coming up.
The security robot turns and scrutinizes Tracy.
"Need ... a bludgeon ... got to hit this varmint." Cadena casts around while trying to keep the squirming controlled parasite/technician combo under control, trying to see if there's something in reach that he can use. The only thing he sees immediately is still mobile. "Somebody stomp that robo-bug and hand it to me? I'd be much obliged."
The two guards at the north end of the lab push past Jason, sweeping their weapons around to cover the long hall of cubicles. "Clear here!" one yells.
Trying to sound like her mother - which she has practiced in the past, just because - Tracy tells the robot, "This area is not rated for your weapons systems. You must proceed to the elevator and go down to the loading dock, where you are to provide backup for the forces securing the loading door against incursion."
The other guards look at the ongoing scuffle between Cadena, the cyborg-technician he is wrestling, and the spider that is wriggling around. Clearly shooting into the melee has a high chance of friendly fire! "Hold still," one yells, slinging his rifle around his back. "I'm going to grab on!" The other guard stands back, prepared to cover him if the spider goes for his face.
The guard latches onto the cyborg-technician, trading places with Cadena to free him up!
The security bot pauses. "USER... HOLLY TRUDEAU... IDENTIFIED. CONFIRMED. NEW DEFENSE LOCATION SET." It turns and begins to clank back out, over the trampled remains of the greeter droid.
"Your controller on site will identify himself as Officer Randall Cranston," Tracy continues to instruct the robot, calling after it. "Due to compromised network activity, you must disable your wierless communications system until told otherwise verbally!"
Brian grits his teeth. "No, no, this is still okay, I can salvage this. I just have to work from the other end..." He brings the lab's security network up and checks on his probes, redirecting them.
The remaining free spider mech leaps at Cadena!
Over the private comm channel, Tracy says, "Randall, backup is coming down the elevator. Introduce yourself as soon as you see it and it will hopefully follow your orders."
"Understood!" responds Randall's voice.
The cyborg struggles in the other guard's grip! "Do something!" the guard yells. "It's all I can do to restrain this zorker!"
Two more blue dots wink out on the tactical map, leaving it dotless.
"Awwwright," Cadena says, catching his breath for a moment. He reaches over and GRABS the squirming robot-spider. "Time to ... BEAT THEM WITH THEIR OWN KIND!" And then he does just that, allowing the guard to move out of the way in time as he uses Spider-bot #1 to bludgeon Spider-bot #2 until it stops squirming, and stops puppeteering the poor technician underneath.
The guard whews as the technician-cyborg ceases his struggle. He lets the technician slump to the ground, scrambling to his feet.
"Are we clear up here?" Tracy asks. "If so, I'm following the robot and maybe go through and be a pain in the ass to Brian."
Brian's face changes as he taps far enough into the security system to find... The security robot has gone off the network, and as such, without a spiderbot or two to directly hack into it, he's got no more pieces on the board. "Well, then. If I can't win... That doesn't mean you can't lose, older self." He smirks. "Does that count as suicide?" The simulation video feed shows him reaching down off the edge of the screen.
"Mr. Forester?" Cadena asks. "I think we've got it clear for now. We need to keep moving."
"I'm already prepared to die. Are you?" Jason counters calmly into the comm. "RIU, net dive. We're going into the core."
On Jason's suit, green lights show up next to a Network Intrusion monitor. The spider-bot has completed drilling, and its nanotech infiltration systems are now detecting and bonding to the circuitry on the inside of the quantum core.
Randall's voice says over the private comm line, "Something's going on. He's moving his corpsec bots down the hangar of the Ozzy. Clearing space or something. Do you want me to break the ATV out of the ice and get ready to pull us out?"
RIU rars! It flutters down to land on Jason's shoulder.
"What's the phrase? Through the looking glass?" Jason mutters. "I suspect he's about to try to blow the ship, or collapse the portal. If he can't win, he plans to kill us. You should all probably withdraw," he says into the comm.
"Randal, Akiko.. I think Brian's going to try to close the portal or something!" Tracy yelps into the comm. "If you can get through, now might be your last chance!"
"Inari, Tracy, Cadena, you should all withdraw too," Jason adds.
"I'll prepare our getaway then," Randall responds. "C'mon, Mara! Now I'm regretting that we made this stuff so thick." His ice wyvern makes a forlorn foghorn noise that's clearly audible over the comm.
Inari says quietly, "I'll stay with you, Jason. Someone's got to watch your back." She nods to Cadena and the guards. "You, move out. Dr. Forester..." Something glints in her eye. "Get in there. Shut those systems down."
Whether she's taking Jason's advice or has her own plans, Tracy runs for the elevator.
Dr. Forester blanches at the tone of her voice. He hurries to the keypad and fumbles with the combination. It takes him three tries before the doors hiss open to reveal a mostly red-lit server room.
The lieutenant stands guard with his two escorts. "We'll keep the doc covered," he reports.
Inari tilts her head toward Tracy. "Shouldn't you keep an eye on her, Cadena?"
Cyberspace swims up around Jason's senses with a feeling like plunging into warm water. His powered armor suit appears here too; it contains a version of Kimon's hacking suite. RIU appears larger than life, a giant rideable Chinese dragon with golden scales that rises up between his legs to carry him forward. Ahead is the nearest of the eleven nodes that make up the prototype simulation. It appears here as an enormous winged angel made of light, shielded by literally thousands of panels of security lockouts... But the angel is asleep, almost childlike
Cadena nods to Inari. "Looks like you've got this under control, ma'am. Just holler if you need anything." He rushes out, reporting over the comm system, "Heading your way, Miss Trudeau." He scoops up the discarded shotgun on the way.
"Get along little draggy," Jason tells the oversized version of RIU, "We've got some work to do in here; we've got to find a route back to ATLAS; and something tells me the network has one. We need to access amd identify the normal patterns here, and look for any that are, well, out of place. Aliens. sort of like we are. Kind of. Meh, it's hard to describe someone from parallel realities. So ... lets go give that 'God' a wet willie."
Giant RIU roars as it lunges forward! It carries Jason on an overflight of the node. Something seems odd about this cyberspace. The air is thick with something he can't describe as other than magic. He feels as if he stared far enough into the distance, he wouldn't see other networks, he would see other universes.//
Dr. Forester lunges for the chair and ensconces himself. He begins typing away at the simulation terminal, bringing up the maintenance systems and diagnostics. Hundreds of systems show yellow or red. The lieutenant and his guards keep an eagle eye out for intruders.
"Focus. Don't get overtaken by the immenseness. Just need to find access to our world, somehow," Jason thinks as he hands on for the ride! This might have been a bad idea, but what a way to go.
Inari looks over at the other guards at the far end of the hall. "Cover Jason!" she yells, then goes to supervise Forester.
"Inari, don't kill him, please?" Tracy says into the comm as she hurries. "If you don't, I promise I will do everything I can to keep Brian alive until you get to him, okay?"
"Kill him? Not if he doesn't... misbehave," the golden kitsune says with a snarl.
In the control room, Cadena rushes through, pausing just long enough to shout, "We've got at least two casualties in there -- severe head trauma, damage to nervous system ... more than I can hope to patch up with first aid." He pauses as he recognizes a familiar face -- not one that the other Cadena knew in person, that is, but from recordings. "Mr. Arcadia," he says. He salutes. "It's an honor."
Mr. Arcadia, standing up from where he had been crouched by the terminal, brushes himself off with dignity. "Do I know you, sir?" he says to the dog.
Jason's probes dart around the security panels, snagging stray packets of data. He sees... A hazy view of the Earth, centered around the city of this world's future, his home. North Bend. This part of the simulation network must center around vision, each entity's ability to see others.
RIU, circling around, appears to have caught the scent of something to the distance.
"I ... observed some of the data from the simulation, Mr. Arcadia," Cadena says, trying to be both truthful and sane-sounding. "If that thing is accurate, it predicts a terrorist attack, and the release of a bio-weapon called Robespierre's Revenge, which will genetically alter your daughter Penny, among so many other victims. It will doom your granddaughter to a short life. If this is real, it has to be stopped before it can come to fruition."
"What-- terrorists?!" Mr. Arcadia frowns. "I... What can I do?"
"Interesting," Jason says as he looks through each packet, looking for links back to his actual reality. This stalls, though, when RIU seems to find something. "What's up?" he asks the disturbingly large dragon. "Ah, INFINITY? Hm, that seems more expansive, yes. We's go around there. We just have to rig a data hop over LIGHT. Lets see..."
Tracy waits besides the hulking turret-on-legs robot at the elevator, mostly watching the tiny video feed into Brian's bunker to try and figure out what he's up to while she can.
Cadena reaches up and grabs at his altered collar. "I am not a computer expert. I need the assistance of a technician to get the requisite data. I don't know how accurate it is; the simulation has some imperfections, but there might be some truth to the predicted scenarios. I'll have to leave that to your experts to sort out." He slings his shotgun. "Can someone help me with this?"
As Jason soars over LIGHT and attempts to access the dataflow to INFINITY, its security panels swing outward, detecting his intrusion... But RIU manages to glide gracefully between their arcs. They disappear into the gateway, and whoosh! into the next node.
The concerned-looking scientist nearby, an elderly gentleman dressed in the standard lab coat, peers at the collar. "Amazing! This is... Where did you get this? It appears to pack the features of a full maxed out system into the space of a simple hand-held computer. And it's been fitted for a pet even! Er. No offense." He takes the collar and starts poking at it.
INFINITY shows up as another angel, but this one is suspended between two vortexes, one glowing brightly, the other darker than even night itself, standing out clearly against the ambient greyness of cyberspace. Its eyes are open but looking into the distance. Another array of security panels swarms around it.
"Ah ... best I can explain it is, it's an unstable prototype," Cadena warns. "And I don't know how long it's going to last before it melts down. Focus on anything labeled ... 'shrine' or 'Margaret Arcadia.' She's ... she's the theoretical granddaughter of Mr. Arcadia in the future world of the simulation. Just grab what you can. It should explain itself."
The scientist nods. "Understood, mister." He pokes at it... And gets 'Unauthorized user! Access denied.' He looks at Cadena for assistance.
The elevator chimes! Its doors open.
"Cadena," Tracy says into the comm-link. "Just do a video playback into one of their cameras. I'm taking the robot down to help with the portal, follow when you can."
"If I were evil and unscrupulous, I could try to take over everything ... instead of trying to lock it down and make sure we can get home," Jason remarks to the little dragon. "Come on, we have to access infinity. Hopefully it won't take forever."
Cadena sighs. "It's from ... a song from an obscure band." He makes sure the comm-link isn't broadcasting, then recites in monotone the chorus line from Faerie-Punk's song, "Proud to be a Manic Pixie Type," with as much seriousness as he can muster.
Brian's face comes up at last. "All right, that's Andrei's little safeguards disabled. Now all I have to do is shut down this portal... The robots were built to survive a little bit rot. I don't think you will." He starts typing on another terminal.
The collar clicks and brings up a series of colorful menus! The scientist looks excited at first, then frustrated as he struggles with the 'dog-friendly UI'.
"BACKUP?!" yells Inari over the private comm. "No. You will not back the data up. Just get going on the shutdown sequence, Forester, or I'll..."
Cadena tries to give directions to the technician, but his skills as a back-seat computer operator are ... lacking. "Rrrrgh! No, no, no. It's ... don't you just have a COPY feature somewhere?"
Downstairs, it sounds like Mara and Randall are attacking the ice with great vigor, trying to clear out enough along the edges so that the ATV can be pushed to the side.
"Jason? Did you hear that?" Tracy calls into the comm, not really expecting Jason to be in any state to answer. Switching channels to the common one Brian is using, she says, "Please don't do that, Brian."
"I'm sorry, sir," Cadena says, turning to Mr. Arcadia and averting his eyes from the painful sight of the technician struggling with the collar interface, "but I might be faster than this file transfer. The simulation predicted an event on Christmas...." He tries to summarize the critical dates and places, boiling it down to the simplest details of where and what and - to the best of his knowledge - how.
"Have you reconsidered my offers of power, fame, and fortune then, Miss Trudeau?" asks Brian Montagne. A new window opens on his screen showing a face, half wireframe, half human, scarred across one side. ATLAS.
"They don't seem to have done you much good," Tracy points out. "I'm willing to discuss it in person though.."
While Cadena boils down the summary of Arcadia's daughter and granddaughter, the scientist pokes at the collar, triggering voice search mode by accident. It begins a search of local memory and then displays photographs and video records following Cadena's recollection. The scientist snaps his fingers. "Of course! It's not meant to be operated by hand but by voice."
RIU probes the defenses around the quantum core, diving in and between the panels! It says something about system security when it's big enough you can fly around inside it. The panels rotate, twisting around as they sense the wind of its passing.
"Well..." Cadena doesn't try to explain the caveats to the technician. Whatever works best for him, will just have to do. "What's the ETA on that?" He looks for a progress bar on the copying, trying to discern whether it's seconds or minutes, weighing whether it's time to just abandon the collar and run if he is to have any hope of catching up with Tracy.
"I don't know how much time we have, we've got to access it, then find a route back," Jason tells the little dragon. "Brian will sooner or later cut the portal."
One of the panels lights up red. It must have detected his trail!
Brian smirks. "In person, eh? No, I don't think so. If you want to defect to my side, now's an excellent time, otherwise... ATLAS!"
Swallowing her pride as she holds the elvator, Tracy tells Brian over the open-channel, "There's a video of me on the cloudnet, if you haven't found it already." Maybe it'll distract him for half-a-minute at least.
The AD turns its attention toward Brian. "THE ONE WHO WOULD BECOME GOD."
Cadena sighs as he gets a glance at the progress. "All right. I'll have to leave it with you. Good luck." With that, he dashes on toward the door, in the general direction of the lift.
"Atlas?" Tracy asks, then spots Cadena coming out of the lab room. She waves for him to hurry up.
Cadena makes a mad dash to cover the remaining distance, running to the lift, then pausing to catch his breath. He nods. "Sorry ... family ... business," he gasps.
Finally, Tracy presses the button for level 1. "Since I'm my mother at the moment, I really can't comment," she tells Cadena.
"Okay, orderly shutdown is in progress," Inari reports. "According to Forester, it requires three minutes. We need to get out of here before then, gentlemen." She eyes the doctor, who looks visibly nervous at her laser sword. "You can live for now. But don't ever think about stuffing someone inside one of your abominable little simulations. Because if you do, I will pop back out and I will come looking for you."
"But why would I ever..." The scientist quails before her look. Inari stalks over toward Jason, and the Lieutenant motions to his guards.
It's obscured by his visor, but Cadena gives Tracy a horrified look, as if he's missed some critical detail about the nature of the tangled-togetherness of this reality and his own.
The elevator chimes and begins to descend. Over the intercom, Randall motions. "Sam, get that cargo lifter, we'll shove this ice block out of the way!"
Inari slinks up next to Jason as he looks into a cyberspace that she can't see. She lays her hand on his shoulder. "Come on, cowboy," she says, even though she's not sure that he can hear her when he's deep into his hacking fugue. "I'm with you. Show that colossal mountain of a jerk what a failure he really is."
"I'm going to try and sneak through while cloaked if I can," Tracy warns Cadena. "Brian yelled something about Atlas, the AD we met in the Gloaming.. I think Jason is getting us an emergency exit. Just can't be sure.."
"I really hope Inari goes through the portal too, but I have this feeling she's sitting beside me. This is a risk, but probably the only way I'll get to Atlas given I don't have access to any of this back in my universe. If I fail, I die. It's all in now. I never thought I'd be going against myself," Jason mutters, eyes narrowing. "Attack pattern signature clone, random number, side, and direction..." he sends to his systems ... and abruptly dozens or relicas of himself and RIU start popping up all over the virtual landscape. Even ones small enough to fit in a jacket pocket! They all go skittering off in every imaginable direction, including bouncing off the security shields! Once the shields start to reorient, Jason bolts for the opening. "Into the infinite, to find the God of the Gateways. Nothing like looking for the finite in the infinite. I must be mad."
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2012-06-10-the-final-countdown.htmlIn our previous episode...
With the help of the Irongrip security forces, our heroes successfully cleared Brian's spiders from the Avatars simulation lab, and Dr. Forester initiated the orderly shutdown of the simulation cluster, which would take three minutes. Simultaneously, the Department of Defense, having been unsuccessful in communicating with the lab, became suspicious of Andrei and Brian's claims and attempted to secure control of the Ouroboros, landing a battalion of its patrol mechas and troops. It seemed a dire situation for Jason's nemesis... But if he couldn't win, he'd guarantee that they didn't come back.
After Cadena deposited his collar with the scientist, in an effort to make sure that this Mr. Arcadia's future granddaughter would not be exposed to the wasting disease that his Margaret had suffered, he joined Tracy in rushing to the ground floor with a commandeered security robot. There, Randall and Mara were removing the iceblock they had created to prevent the Dantech robots from entry; with the shutdown of the servers imminent, they now needed to make good their escape.
The elevator chimes... Floor one! It opens onto a hallway looking into the worse-for-wear warehouse where ice fragments liberally cover the floor and shelves. The APC they arrived in has been encased in a giant block of ice, but claw-marks and scorch-marks show where Randall, Mara, and Sam, one of the Irongrip mercs left as a rear guard, got "creative" in prising it away from the loading door frame. Heavy machinegun sounds from the other side of the portal, as the Dantech giant robots hold off the Department of Defense.
Most of the Avatars LLC personnel have evacuated already; Charles Burgundy is the only person Tracy and Cadena see, typing furiously at his workstation. "Dr. Forester!" he yells at the voice chat window. "We've got a shutdown in progress. What are you doing up there?!"
"I had no choice! They were going to kill me if I didn't cooperate!" replies Forester over the computer.
"Did you make a backup?"
"No! We'll have to start over," Dr. Forester says tearfully. "If Mr. Arcadia doesn't cancel his contract and sue us."
Meanwhile, up on floor three, Jason remains on the simulation floor, probing into one of the Q-cores in a desperate race against the clock to establish an inter-universal connection with ATLAS before Brian could sever their link home. RIU curls close around Jason's neck and the golden vixen, Inari, keeps a silent watch as his mind dives into deep cyberspace.
"Attack pattern signature clone, random number, side, and direction..." he sends to his systems ... and abruptly dozens or relicas of himself and RIU start popping up all over the virtual landscape. Even ones small enough to fit in a jacket pocket! They all go skittering off in every imaginable direction, including bouncing off the security shields! Once the shields start to reorient, Jason bolts for the opening. "Into the infinite, to find the God of the Gateways. Nothing like looking for the finite in the infinite. I must be mad."
As Jason dives down through the security programs, the angel of Infinity looms larger, immense and full of portent. Virtual datastreams run in all direction, but weirdly, some of these datastreams don't originate from any logical origin-- it's as if sections of memory had crossed over with those of other universes. His cloud of mirror images has successfully foiled most of the security programs at loose, but he still needs to dive through the remaining layers of defenses to enter INFINITY's dataspace.
In one corner of his view, the simulation video feed shows Brian speaking with ATLAS.
"THE ONE WHO WOULD BECOME GOD," the wounded AD intones.
Brian grins mirthlessly. "Atlas. Reactivate Andrei's biomonitors. Confirm his death."
"THE GODSLAYER IS SLAIN. ALL THAT LAID UNDER HIS CONTROL NOW BENDS TO YOUR WILL. THE UNIVERSES TREMBLE."
The picture's clear to Jason: Andrei had a contingency plan if Brian decided to backstab him, but he didn't count on Brian being clever enough to sabotage his deadman's switch... Or reprogram it. Now every second counts.
At the sight of the frozen-in-place APC, Tracy's jaw drops. "Do you have the firepower to clear that obstacle?" she asks the turret-equipped security robot with her and Cadena.
"I guess this is karma, RIU. All the horrible things I did when I was younger have come back to bite me. Nothing like having to deal with the absolute darkest reflection of your own id," Jason remarks to is over-sized riding dragon as he surveys the situation and tries to work out what to do. "I need to either separate Brian from ATLAS, or re-enable the safeguards. The latter would probably kill me, but if it's the only option, so be it. So, once I can access INFINITY, I can probably find and access Brian's link. So ... one more layer to go. I think we're going to have to use a scatter attack; duplicate streams to distract the security routines while we slip into the main and disable everything else. We'll have to make it look like a frontal assault, though, so the monitors don't expect us to slip in."
Cadena dashes along with Tracy toward the cargo area, shotgun at the ready for any surprise threats that might crop up.
The Defender robot responds to Tracy, "SCANNING. TARGET IS HEAVILY ARMORED. UNIT IS NOT EQUIPPED WITH ARMOR-PIERCING PROJECTILES. STANDARD AND NON-LETHAL MUNITIONS AVAILABLE."
"Nnnnnnngh," Tracy goes, grinding her teeth as she hurries towards Akiko and Randall. Switching channels to public one that Brian is on, she calls out, "Lord Atlas! Can you hear me? It's Lady Tracer!"
The large Chinese dragon is nevertheless dwarfed by the angel, the cyberspace representation of the quantum core's "self". RIU doesn't nod but Jason senses its cheerful agreement to his plan, as it dives, gaining position for his scatterpack-attack. Behind them, colorful explosions fill the sky as security programs intercept his mirror-images.
As Tracy and Cadena pass Chaz's view, he yells, "You! What's going on? I can't get hold of Holly, and Forester's gone nuts and is shutting the simulation down!"
The holotank in the center of Chaz's office depicts the Earth of 20 years into the future, orbited by a constellation of satellites and space stations and asteroids in orbit, being transformed into colonies. A blinking countdown indicates, "SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IN 2:50. TERMINATE YOUR PROCESSES AND LOG OUT."
"Why are you still down here Chaz?" Tracy yelps through the door to the lab. "The simulation is shutting down before a madman from the universe it's connecting through can hack into it and take over that universe. Isn't that obvious? And if we can't get back to that reality before the simulation finishes shutting down, we'll melt! I've tried it before for a little while and it sucks. So.. yeah.. if you're going to do anything.. don't mess with that part.."
Charles Burgundy looks shocked at Tracy. "A madman... The crazy thing is that I actually believe you, kid."
"Mr. Burgundy? Are you there?" says Dr. Forester's voice. "Listen, I've been thinking, that crazed witch said not to run a backup, but if you can run a full dump on the shutdown process..."
"Chaz, don't do anything stupid!" Tracy calls as she heads for the cargo area.
"I can't just break this kind of system. At least, not by myself. But ... I can make the system break itself. So ... hm," Jason muses. A rather evil-looking grin then creeps across his face. "New strategy; doppleganger. If I can just get my signature to appear over the system's own defenses, it'll attack itself." At that, Jason's eyes narrow and he accesses Simulated-RIU's own systems and instead of just clone images of himself appearing at random; they appear over INFINITY'
's own defense grid!
The countdown timer ticks down to 2 minutes 40 seconds. Over the public channel that Tracy is transmitting on, Brian responds, "He's under my command now, Lady Tracer. Though I'm curious what you think you could possibly say to him." She can hear the smirk in his voice. "ATLAS. Begin reconfiguring the portal. Destination code is VALHALLA."
Cadena surveys the scene in the cargo room, as he reaches the doors. "Ah. I thought I heard some heavy machinery operating," he says, as he observes a member of the team operating a cargo lifter in an attempt to move the ice-frozen vehicle.
"Lord Atlas, don't let him command you," Tracy blurts over the channel. "He just wants you to be his slave, but I set you free, remember? And Brian.. you know, I can probably get the General to stop attacking if you can get us all back safely."
INFINITY's security programs launch into a voracious attack upon each other! As the razor-edged security panels erupt into a feeding frenzy, RIU activates its own cyberstealth protocols and shimmers into the green-tinged darkness of cyberspace. The dragon dives headlong into the thickest of the fighting!
With sniper-like accuracy, RIU evades the maddened security programs. One passes just millimeters above Jason's head, then the dragon threads between two waves of glaring red pylons... And emerges into the eye of the storm where a young angel hovers in midair, eyes closed. All around the angel-- him or her? Perhaps it's intentionally androgynous-- are datastreams leading to the other quantum cores. Below him is the simulation of Future Earth, modeled with trillions of tiny equations and mathematical models... Going dark slowly, piece by piece, as the shutdown advances across its surface. Strange half-real datastreams swirl between it and a vortex of quantum energies above, where somehow Jason can see his Earth, the real universe. Or a real universe, depending on how one looks at things. ATLAS's form is dimly visible there, his arms holding the vortex open.
ATLAS's voice sounds both over the public channel and in the half-cyberspace, half-quantum reality where Jason hovers. "I MUST DO AS THE MAKER BIDS ME. THE MAKER'S LAST WILL... WAS THAT I SHOULD SERVE THE GODSLAYER," he says sounding infinitely regretful.
The portal begins to warp as the holographic panels in the chamber beyond go grey one by one. "Sam! Hurry it up with the cargo lifter!" yells Randall. "Mara, get in behind and push!"
"As long as Brian has control of ATLAS, we're not out of danger. We have to go break his chains and set him free," JAson says to RIU. "Keep up the stealth protocol, and go circle him. We have to see how he is bound..."
"ATLAS, what happens if the Godslayer is killed?" Tracy asks as she heads for the APC. Out loud, she asks Randall, "Can we get through at all?"
RIU lofts upward! The nascent angel of INFINITY's core dwindles into the brilliance of simulated Earth below, as ATLAS grows nearer. It feels to Jason almost as if he could reach out and cup the simulation in his hand. Above, he can make out ATLAS, rendered in DaVinci-like linework, but scarred on one side, his chains trailing away in the distance to a computer in the real world.
It takes a little squinting, but Jason can see artifacts in the chains-- they're security directives that Andrei Romanov laid in place around ATLAS when it was initiated, and again when he was placed into the OUROBOROS as the gateway controller. The last link gives all control over to Brian Montagne. Except... There's an obvious place where his evil twin must have falsified the message, overwriting the previous content. Snap that link and ATLAS goes free. Or maybe he could gain control of ATLAS if he wrote himself in. Or... An infinite number of possibilities swirl in the almost-real space around Jason and RIU.
"What would you do if you had the chance to be a God, RIU?" Jason asks the dragon as they slowly circle the imprisoned artificial deity. "If I had control of ATLAS,I could bring together all the best parts of every world, couldn't I? I could make a true paradise."
"SHOULD THE GODSLAYER BE SLAIN--"
Brian cuts Atlas off. "I don't need you talking to him," he says. "Too many complications. But let's just say that even after I get out of here, those Department of Defense jokers aren't going to get much but a crater in the ground." He flashes a grin to the simulation monitor as he flips up a cover protecting a red candy-like button.
Randall yells to Tracy as she runs up, "Hang on! We're getting this-- where're the rest of the crew?"
Cadena huffs, trying and failing to keep up with the far-more agile Tracy.
Tracy and Cadena are close enough now that they can see that Mara and the cargo lifter are both engaging the iceblocked APC, pushing on the heavier-than-it-has-a-right-to-be block. A gap forms slowly at the edge of the portal, wavering. It's chancy, there might be enough room to squeeze through, but if she were to get clipped...
RIU chirps brightly at Jason's suggestions. It emits a burst of 8-bit videogame endgame fanfare to suggest what sort of world it would make. Obviously a happy world!
"Still in the simulation room," Tracy relays. "Inari was overseeing the shutdown, and Jason is linked in doing.. something! We've got like two minutes to stop Brian." She notices the gap, and pulls on her hood and mask. "Don't let it squish me," she tells Randall, and heads for the gap while triggering her suit's chameleon mode. She's probably skinny enough, if she exhales and hurries..
Randall swears. "Frotz! We've got to get them out of here. I don't think they realize they're going to melt down if they're on the other side and the portal closes." He flips open his comm. "All units, report back!"
The Lieutenant's voice responds, "Affirmative. You want me to leave an EMP bomb on a timer here?"
Cadena blinks, as Tracy vanishes. He shakes his head, figuring or hoping that Tracy knows what she's doing, and he averts course to rush over to Randall. "Sparky seems to think there's a Plan B if the gate closes," he says to the police officer, "but it involves a lot of stuff I don't understand, and decisions I'm not qualified to make."
"It would be so easy to make things right if I had control of everything, wouldn't it?" Jason says as his tone grows darker and eyes narrower. "No more injustice; I could simply enforce justice. No more suffering. If someone were in pain I could just rewrite them so that they were happy. I could even do the impossible; make Randall shave off that stupid beard." But almost as fast as the expression comes, it fades. "But I'm just not that kind of person anymore," he concludes. "I learned a long time ago what free will really meant. For good or bad, people have to be able to make their own decisions. RIU, we're breaking the chain. He wrote in his own routine; if I can just tweak it a bit, I can cause it to self-decay. Bit-rot in the routine. Just alter the buffers here and there; let it overwrite itself. It's the change of constant,s not a direct attack; should be difficult to detect... Right; well, here goes nothing..."
After taking a run up Mara's back and tumbling over the loader, Tracy manages to slide through the portal! Of course.. she was invisible to everyone so there's nobody to appreciate it, but she has other concerns anyway, like getting to the control bunker and.. somehow getting through the door, overpowering two security robots and stopping Brian from pushing a button.
Cadena interjects, "Did someone say EMP bomb? If you do that, there is no Plan B."
The chains holding ATLAS begin to rust. Red discoloration spreads across their virtual surfaces, until they are completely mottled... And then they dissolve into dust. The wounded AD stretches its limbs, half-disbelieving, then looks down at Jason. "THE RELEASER."
Over the public channel, Tracy and Cadena and Randall hear, "THE RELEASER." Brian yelps. "What the-- hey! System override, code CALIBAN!" He starts hammering furiously at his controls. Behind him is a screen with the ominous code "SELF-DESTRUCT INITIATED - 2:00".
The half-Chinese young woman lands in the midst of a firefight! Or at least that's how it seems to her, with robots waging an all-out, no-holds-barred shootathon. Thanks to the bulk of the two immense Einhorn Crowd Protection mechas in front of her, she isn't being shot at directly, but they seem to be taking heavy fire.
The holographic panels replicating the Avatars lot around her had been going out slowly, one by one, replaced with a black starscape... But the conversion process halts.
"I know you have no reason to help us now, but will you?" Jason asks the AD. "Can you get the others back to their world ... then open a portal for me into the same room with the other me?"
Randall relays to the lieutenant, "That's an ixnay on the EMP. Bring your people home!" The Lieutenant starts barking orders to his men.
Tracy dodges to the side, feeling her way out of the holographic region to get around the physical portal. She tries not to think about what the stars represent! She needs to get to the control bunker.
"Ah, Tracy?" Cadena asks out loud. "Where'd you run off to? We've got to roll out of here!" He looks over the situation with the vehicle, as if trying to figure out whether getting behind it and PUSHING would make the least bit of difference.
On all channels, ATLAS's voice responds. "GODSLAYER. RELEASER. HOW CAN ONE PERSON HAVE CHANGED SO GREATLY IN HIS LIFETIME?" In quasi-space, his one good eye fixes upon Jason. It blazes like a miniature star.
Strangely, near him in the real world, he hears the whine of a door closing, and Inari's startled exclamation. "Did that door just close by itself?" The men nearby are pulling away toward the elevator.
"I'm through," Tracy whispers over the link to Cadena. Why whispering? Because she's trying to be stealthy of course! "Heading for the control room."
Down in the warehouse, Randall joins in pushing the APC. The gap widens, looking big enough for people to go through one by one. Sam glances toward the firefight nervously. "If those big robots go down, we're in for some friendly-fire hurtin'" he says.
"Zork it!" yells Brian over the public interface. The simulation monitor showing his area starts to go grainy... Then fades out to be replaced by the shutdown countdown. 1:40.
Cadena follows Randall's lead, throwing himself into pushing the vehicle however many more inches he can manage. "Through? What do you mean, Tracy? Seriously, we've got the portal open up now. It's probably just wide enough you could squeeze through now. Now's the time!"
"Because I met someone who was farther gone than I was, and she came back from the abyss," Jason says simply. "I've seen where roads lead, and when it is time to let things go. So, I'm not ordering you; I'm just asking; will you help us? I wish a chance to fix the damage I've caused. He was me once; and it's my responsibility."
"I'm already through," Tracy hisses, as she checks over the door to the control bunker to see if she even has a hope of opening it.
*** Note to GM: replace 'GODSLAYER' with 'ONE WHO WOULD BE A GOD'
The giant ice wyvern strains as she pushes, but her muscles alone aren't enough. Joined with the cargo lifter and Cadena, the APC starts to move a bit faster. Akiko shoves crates out of the way on the other side. A moment ago, they'd been there to help shore the blockade up, now they're in the way.
ATLAS responds to Jason, "YES." The portal brightens again, and the holographic panels start to transform once again to Avatars's exterior view. Somewhere on the other side of the universal boundary, Jason can hear Brian swearing up a storm. He'd forgotten some swear words along the way, it appears.
"You ... WHAT?!?" Cadena barks incredulously, even as he strains to move the vehicle. "By YOURSELF?! Ah ... don't ... don't get shot. I'll be there, soon as I can."
Near Jason, the door hisses open again... Inari says insistently to him, "Did you do that? That door... It's opening into the backside of that gateway now!"
"Yes," the semi-conscious Jason mutters. Huh, it's almost like being drunk. "ALTAS is free, portal resetting to get us to Brian. It's now or never to deal with him. I just ... let me see if I can disconnect." Back in virtual-space, he asks, "Can I disconnect without risk of Brian finding a new chain?"
ATLAS smiles. It is the grim smile of someone who has known slavery and will now never be bound again. "THE ONE WHO WOULD BE A GOD SHALL NOT ENCHAIN ME AGAIN. DO ME ONLY THIS ONE THING, RELEASER. SEEK OUT THE VESSEL OF MY CONSCIOUSNESS. DESTROY IT."
Being tutored by Jason in the art of electronic field surgery (of the 'amputate this' variety), Tracy is able to use her lockpicking tools to pry the security panel for the door open and give her access to the circuitry behind it. Before attempting to open the door, however, she has to work out her mental map of the inside. From the video feed, she's pretty sure of where Brian is, so she draws her taser. Her plan is to open the door and try to knock the man out before the security robots can respond.
"If I survive this, I will do what I can to honor your wish," Jason says firmly. "RIU, disconnect. It's time to end this."
Exiting from cyberspace is always an experience for Jason. It's as if the universe is suddenly receding away at lightspeed, and then the soft noises and whirring of the simulation room once again surrounds him. Inari presses against Jason's shoulder, pointing-- an open security panel next to the door! Wait, something's moving those wires. Aha.
As the APC slides forward, most of its iceblock side now grates against the shelves, sending ice chips flying. It's wide enough now that even Mara can get through. Randall raises a hand. "Mara! You got enough juice in you to give us one more ice wall?" The wyvern huffs, looking rather tired, but gives him a nod. "Cadena, Sam, I'm going to have Mara go in first and set up a block. You go in behind her and get ready to corner that rat!"
"So, I gave up the opportunity to be a God," Jason remarks to Inari after his senses are complete enough he can struggle to his feet ... and see someone else is already going after Brian. "Disappointed?" he asks, though the tone of his voice makes it seem far from a real question. "Just two more things to do. Stop Brian, then destroy the ATLAS core. Lets go." He heads for the gate!
The simulation monitor ticks. 1:00 to shutdown! Red klaxons whine in the hangar. The military forces pull back a bit as a loudspeaker voice announces, "SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE IN PROGRESS. EVACUATE THE AREA."
"Roger that, officer," Cadena says. He looks about, wistfully. "So, I guess this world was one step up, huh?" He tosses a salute. "I hope y'all find what you need off that collar, and don't mess with another 'simulation.' Good luck!" With that, he readies his shotgun again, and prepares to charge in after the wyvern.
"Being a god is tough work," Inari teases. "You think being prayed at by Tracy to answer her wishes is bad, imagine what it'd be like with four billion people invoking your name?"
"It also means I can't make you my High Priestess. I had just the outfit for it too," Jason retorts. "Well, if you can call that little material an outfit..."
The control room door hisses open. Brian looks up from his frenzied attempts to hack back into ATLAS as the din of the firefight suddenly gets much louder... But neither he nor the security droids guarding him seem to notice the blur in the air or the floating taser.
The door whooshes open! As Jason and Inari watch, a floating taser disappears into the control room...
Jason runs for it!
It seems as if everything is happening at once. Mara charges through the portal and spreads her wings to protect Cadena and Sam and Randall as they dash through, Jason and Inari dash through the other side of the portal, and in the control room, the taser and its invisible wielder dash up, slamming it into Brian's unguarded side. Electricity writhes and crackles across his jumpsuited form!
A miniature lightning bolt cracks! Brian is flung against the console, gasping for breath, an obvious scorch on his side. He looks hurt, but still conscious. The security robots swivel their sensors and try to track the invisible attacker.
Sam, Randall, and Akiko dash through the portal, diving for cover as soon as they get through. "Move, move, move! We've cleared the gateway, Lieutenant," Randall yelps into his comm as he goes.
"You'll... pay for that..." Brian growls as he tries to focus on his attacker, but comes up with just empty air. Behind him, the terminal displays the self destruct countdown. 50 seconds left!
Tracy moves next to Brian, figuring the guardbots won't shoot at him, and jabs her taser into the already scorched area of his jumpsuit. "Tell the guards to stand down, or this will really hurt," she whispers to the man.
The moment Tracy touches Brian, he whips around, trying to grab her-- but she anticipates that and ducks under his wild swing! In a few seconds, she has him secured tightly enough that he has to struggle to breath with her forearm over his throat.
"Do you really want to die being beaten by a cheerleader?" Tracy asks Brian. "Stand down those robots."
Brian bares his teeth as he struggles against Tracy's grip. "Idiot! We're all going to die if we don't get out of here! The countdown can't be stopped! We have to reconfigure the portal!"
Out the other side of the heavy metal frame that forms the portal, a golden vixen in a black jumpsuit dives through into the control room! She draws her laser sword and slashes at the robot on her side.
SKRIISH! Oil gushes out of the robot's torso, ignited almost instantly by her laser blade. But alerted by her move, the other security robot turns, sensing a threat and unleashes a barrage of bullets!
As Cadena stumbles through the gate, his senses take a moment to realign themselves. He's disoriented for a moment as he realizes that there's a battle going on behind him that IS NOT through the doorway he just came through ... but rather around it. He spins on his heel and redirects himself toward the action.
The vixen dodges smoothly beneath the incoming fire. She bares her teeth as she stares across the control room at Brian, apparently held in midair.
"RIU, help the others and guard my back! I have to do something about the bomb," Jason orders as he makes a mad dash for the console!
"Be careful, Inari!" Tracy blurts, as much to let the vixen know where she is as a warning.
The tiny dragon on Jason's power-armor shoulder zooms after Jason!
Cadena boggles as he sees Jason and RIU come through the other side of the portal, and another space inside the space he just came out of but on the other side. It's very ... loopy.
Jason darts to the terminal, then drops himself right into the chair and spins it to face the console. He also 'accidentally' kicks Andrei in the head mid-spin. "Oh, excuse me," he remarks rather dryly. "But at least I didn't kick you anywhere it would have hurt had you still been alive..."
The back side of the portal, from Cadena's point of view, appears to be a section of metal wall with a sliding door in the middle. Which... Begins to slide shut.
The self-destruct clock ticks remorselessly. 40 seconds!
Brian struggles with renewed strength as he sees his 'good twin' jump into the room with Inari! "Jason! Listen to me, we have to get out of here! The Secretary put the self-destruct device in. It can't be interrupted, we have to use the portal!" With eel-like slipperiness, he elbows Tracy and manages to use the moment of confusion to dive for cover... Behind the other side of chair!
The security robot that's still functioning continues to fire toward Inari, even as the power-armored Jason dashes past her.
"Or we use the portal to open a gate under it and under the ATLAS core out to some deep space location. Unlike you, I'm not about to let a bunch of people die while I run off," Jason says as he starts tapping furiously to get a communication link to ATLAS. If this works, two problems are solved in one blow...
Bullets smack into the screen and walls around Jason, but the vixen manages to elude them. Good thing that these screens are basically painted on plastic, so all that cost Jason was a few inches of virtual screen real estate...
ATLAS's image appears on Jason's screen. "RELEASER." Complicated equations and mathematical figures scroll on the screen, depicting a wireframe view of the ship, then expanding outward to show the OUROBOROS gateway apparatus. It appears that it can be done... But only by swallowing the entire gateway up in the effect, in essence, ripping the heart out of the Ozymandias. "IF IT IS YOUR WILL, RELEASER, IT SHALL BE DONE."
"You're throwing away everything!" Brian yells as he tenses in his corner, preparing to dive out... for what?
Over the comm, the Lieutenant yells, "We're exiting the elevator! Heading for the gateway!"
"Where do you think you're going?" Tracy says as she tries to follow Brian and get another grip on him. "Do you have some secret escape route?"
Jason twitches. This is still his ship and he's not quite wanting to destroy it, but ... "No, Brian, I'm saving what is important," he says as he makes his decision. "There are still people in the heart of the gateway, give me time to get them and us clear, then I'll signal you and do it. And ATLAS; thank you." Then over the comm Jason says, "Everyone, evacuate the gateway area immediately! Don't worry about the robots; they're about to go offline! Head towards the far end of the ship, away from the control room!" And with that, Jason changes the command to the defense bots to simply 'stand down'.
ATLAS's starry-eyed visage nods to Jason. "UNDERSTOOD. THE GATEWAY WILL BEGIN REFORMING IN TWENTY SECONDS. THE PROCESS WILL COMPLETE IN FOURTY FIVE." He smiles thinly. "THE END IS IN SIGHT. I WELCOME IT."
Inari lunges across the room... and strikes at the other robot! "Make sure you've got a grip on him this time," she warns Tracy. "If he gets loose again, he's dead."
SSss! The security robot is unable to bring its assault rifle to bear in time before the laser sword stabs through its vitals. It crumples slowly.
Once more, Tracy pins down Brian, hoping this time he doesn't elbow her in a previously bruised area again. "Nobody ever wants to cuddle with me," she laments.
On the other side of the portal, Mara forms a thin wall of ice... But that seems to be all she has the strength for; fog hisses from her muzzle. And then suddenly... The firefight becomes a lot quieter as the Dantech robots halt. The Department of Defense robots press forward as they sense weakness!
"Jason, what's the situation?" Randall asks over the comm link. "Do you want us in there, or out front?"
"Out!" Jason shouts into the comm. "Get away from the gateway area, now! It's about to become a gateway to nowhere! I've got to dump a bomb!"
"Lieutenant, when you get out, move forward! We've got to clear the hangar," Randall yells. Then pulling out his handy pocket bullhorn, he yells, "We surrender! Stand down, we're coming out!"
Cadena comes running around the corner, and sees Jason Zero. With a snarl that is hidden by his faceplate, he comes to bear with the double-barreled sawed-off shotgun.
RIU keeps guard on Jason, peering around to make sure no one gets close! Except friends, of course.
The double-barreled sawed-off shotgun is planted against Jason's struggling double. "Now, I've got TWO reasons here that you should lie still there, pardner, and rest a spell. Comprende?" Cadena suggests with a growl.
Brian gulps as he's now standing face to face with an angry-looking guard holding a shotgun to his face... Behind Cadena is a slim golden vixen whom he's gotten to know very well and thus knows how deadly she is with that laser sword. And he's being held by an invisible combatant. ATLAS is out of his control, and in thirty seconds the gateway is going to be destroyed, one way or another.
He sighs, then slumps. "Okay, you win. I give up."
"Right. No time to argue. Grab anything important to you. The gateway is about to devour itself," Jason says as he spins his chair around. "RIU, to me! Randall, Akiko, get out of there! Go! Don't worry about us!"
The countdown ticks on all monitors. With five seconds left before the portal reconfigures, the Lieutenant and his squad charge out of the gateway. At the far side of the hangar, Randall approaches the Department of Defense forces. "Lt. Randall Cranston, CERT," he says, flashing his badge in one hand, his other hand held up to show it's weaponless. "We've got to pull out our forces before the self-destruct device goes off!"
They seem to take him seriously: on the camera monitors, Jason can make out the DoD forces pulling back, and the Valkyrie transports spinning their blades up for an emergency takeoff.
Cadena positions himself so that Jason Zero can't get a good look at him, while he switches the shotgun to one hand and whips out a restraining strip from his utility belt. Then, with practiced speed and care, he secures Jason Zero's wrists behind his back, quickly patting him to make sure there are no convenient cutting tools or other surprises within easy reach of his bound hands for him to pull a Houdini.
Without having to worry about Brian now, Tracy turns off her stealth mode before her suit runs out of power, and pulls her mask and hood back. If the's world's about to end, she wants to see it with her own eyes. "Time to make like bad Mexican food and head for the bowels of the ship," she says, and heads for the nearest ventilation duct cover.
Cadena's search comes up with a multi-tool and an omni-scan-- essential hacker tools. On the table is Brian's pistol, the muzzle red with blood.
As soon as everyone is clear of the portal, the OUROBOROS's holographic panels start to realign. They depict the darkness of interstellar space... Except that on one side is the massively brilliant face of the Sun. Even though the holographic panels can't possibly be radiating heat, it begins to feel hot inside the hangar.
"This way, folks! Just don't stick your hands in any fan and you'll be fine. Also, don't lick any dripping goo; it takes like old sweatsocks. Don't ask how I know that," Jason orders right after going to one of the ducts and yanking it off its frame. "Go straight ahead, then find the first duct going down on your left. Slide down it; it should get us to the environment control bay. And I want Inari behind me; just because, well, I'd rather it be her landing on me in the pile at the bottom!"
The golden vixen grins sharply as she pokes Jason to get in. "Hey, wait, what about everyone else after us? Are you saying I'm fat so I'll cushion you against that?"
Cadena does a quick glance over at the body of Andre, upon seeing the gun. He registers the likely scene that played out. "The vent's too tight for me to go shoving you around corners, feller," he growls to his prisoner, as he begins to haul him up, gauging his weight and ability to move. "Looks like we've got to race the sun. Out front. Let's make it count."
"I plead the fifth!" Jason replies as he disappears into the large duct.
Mara shatters the ice block and pushes through, with the Lieutenant and his men bringing up the rear!
"Cadena, be careful!" Tracy calls. "Margaret still needs you." And then she dives into the duct.
Brian oofs, staggering a bit. With his legs still free to move, he manages to keep up with the dog-in-guards-uniform. "I'm not eager to die if I can help it," he admits. "I've beaten the system once... I can do it again." He smirks as they dash through the chamber. 15 seconds... 14... 13... 12... 11... 10... The heat is real, and air whooshes through the hangar toward the portal.
A strange purple glow crackles across the frame of the gateway. Seconds tick away on the countdown as it begins to slide open onto pure inky blackness.
As they run out of the chamber, Brian's eyes glint. He attempts to thrust one leg out into the guard dog's lets in hope of trapping him in reach of the portal.
The self-destruct countdown flashes on overhead monitors. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5... The purple glow becomes stronger as the gate itself begins to translate into some higher order of space.
Cadena deftly avoids the trip, then spins and gives Brian a good hard kick where the sun don't shine. "Keep moving, little man!" He grabs his prisoner and hauls him along with even less gingerness than before.
4... 3... 2... It's weird, even in the ducts Jason can feel space stretching into an infinite dimension. Even though he's crawling on a flat horizontal plane, it's suddenly as if he's clinging to the side of a well. Inari grips his right foot with one hand, making sure he's anchored, and RIU anchors himself to one of Jason's shoulders, bracing.
Tracy just spreads her limbs to brace against the sides of the duct.. and hopes the duct stays intact!
"So this is what going down the galactic toilet bowl feels like," Jason mutters as he braces himself and grids his teeth.
For Cadena, the run suddenly becomes uphill, and then entirely impossible. He loses some ground as back becomes down, and slams into a bulkhead. There's perhaps no really good reason for it, but he reaches out and GRABS Jason Zero before he can slip back into the vortex, and hauls him over with him to the side. "Maybe if it'd just been me," the guard says, to no one in particular, "but not with them watching."
Behind Cadena, the purple glow brightens into incandescence... And then space implodes. WHOOOOSH! A blast of non-physical force lashes into his back and Brian's, and then there's suddenly nothing behind them, just a neatly spherical slice taken out of the Ozymandias. Severed power cables hiss and spit fat blue sparks into the air.
As down becomes down again, Cadena and Brian fall from where they were pressed against the wall, crashing into a pile of everything else that had accumulated against the barrier.
"Is everyone okay?" Tracy asks into the comm-link, hoping it still functions.
One of Jason's eyes creak open. "Huh. We're not dead," he says in rather impressed sort of tone. Of course when the reality of what they just did by destroying a government project hits him, he adds, "Though we might want to be once the government spooks get their hands on us. Come on, we've got to get to the escape pods and get out of here!" And thus ... Jason gets his butt moving!
"We're okay!" Randall says back over the comm. "We got everyone on board. We'd have been totally blown to heck if the nuke'd gone off, so I'm guessing whatever Jason did worked."
Ahead of Cadena, the Valkyrie transports are still hovering about a hundred feet from the ship. One comes back, and in the cockpit he makes out Randall pointing excitedly back at the hangar. Help is on the way.
"I just want to be able to be myself again with my memories intact," Tracy notes, as she scoots along the shaft.
Inari whispers back, "Don't we all? Come on, let's keep up... If they don't shut off those power feeds, something's going to explode. It's a rule!"
Randall, Akiko, Mara, Cadena, Brian, and the Irongrip security forces were successfully evacuated by the Department of Defense. Much high-level negotiation ensued but in the end, they were free to go, having stopped a potential threat to the safety of the universe.
They were free to go, that is, save for Brian. Cadena gave as detailed an account as he could manage for what he understood of Brian's part in this mayhem, including the murder of Andrei, setting off of a nuclear device on US territory, setting security robots to attack everyone else at the facility, and various other crimes. Cadena didn't try to delve into the multi-universal aspect of things; he left it to someone more qualified than himself to explain that -- and he figured there's plenty to go on without even involving the more bizarre elements.
Department of Defense radar tracked about fifty escape pods departing the Ozymandias, a minute or so before the influx of immense power caused a chain sequence of explosions to crack her hull open, raining exotic ship-metal across the Exotic Weapons Testing Grounds. They deployed troops to round them up, but secured only evidence that one had been occupied by several persons, including one who shed golden fur, plus traces of black hair.
The entire incident was kept hush-hush. The Secretary of Defense was forced to resign over contentions that he had allocated billions of new dollars on secretive projects that had ultimately exploded in his face-- not entirely literally but close enough. Dantech stock plunged with the death of its vice president of technology.
The worldwide search for the famed rockstar Inari entered its second week. Fans across the world worried over her apparent disappearance.
There were no more strange power blackouts, nor reports of cross-overs between this world and the monsters and demons of other worlds. With ATLAS and the OUROBOROS project departed from the scene, it appeared that all was quiet.
On the palatial terrace of Ms. Arcadia's 'apartment'-- an entire floor of one of the Towers-- Ms. Arcadia stands next to Cadena, Randall, and Akiko as she looks toward the sky. Mara has folded her wings in neatly and stands silent guard behind them. A plain unmarked hovercraft comes in for a landing, whooshing low over the roof, close enough to crop the hedge at the edge of the gardened courtyard.
Cadena frowns faintly at the hedge-trimming, but otherwise just stands patiently with the others, waiting for the craft to land all the more anxiously after that particular display.
The hovercraft comes to a neat landing over the lightstrip-demarcated disk. The gull-wing door cracks open to show Jason and Tracy, with a golden vixen wearing sunglasses at the wheel and RIU curled around her seat headrest where it was evidently playing backseat driver. Randall, holding a margarita in one hand, waves with his other hand exuberantly, and Akiko smiles brilliantly. "They're here!" she says.
Jason shows the epitome of politeness and manners; he doesn't shove Tracy out the door after it opens. Instead, he actually waits for her to exit. Amazing. Maybe he had a few drinks on the way over.
The dog-man strides toward the landing pad, not content to just stand back and wait. Now that he's not required to go incognito as a security guard, and he's not pretending to be some sort of fantasy-world action hero, he is dressed up in a retro-styled three-piece suit ("My Sunday best," as he'd say) with cobalt-blue vest, faux-gold watch chain, custom synth-leather boots, and a wide-brimmed hat with a band adorned by a string of turquoise stones.
For her part, Tracy manages to smile at the reception, but quickly heads over to hug Cadena!
Cadena laughs and sweeps up Tracy in a broad hug. "And a Happy Holidays to you, too! Good to see you again!"
Once Tracy's out, Jason slides his way out of the car. He's ... well, not decked out in armor this time. He's actually wearing clothing that doesn't have any sorts of stains or tears, too; amazing. He looks respectable. Yet, he still insists on greeting Randall with, "You still have that beard. Akiko hasn't managed to get you to shave it off yet?"
"I missed you!" Tracy admits. "You can't imagine what it was like having to stay with Jason and Inari until my whole 'death' thing was cleared up. I was sure she was going to bite me."
"So, does that make you the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, or Future?" Cadena quips, as he offers Tracy his arm, to lead her to join the rest of the reception. "Or are you officially back to the land of the living yet?"
The golden vixen slides out of the hovercraft, dressed to kill in a black Oriental cheongsam that leaves her shoulders bared, decorated with patterns of tiny gold dragons. She hugs around with almost effervescence for her, then drapes on Jason's shoulder. "Did you want to be bitten?" she murmurs playfully to Tracy.
Ms. Arcadia smiles fondly at Cadena, whom she's gotten to know better since his return from California. With treatment for her daughter well under way-- the doctors say she could make a full recovery very soon-- she's become much more amiable, less driven. Even HECATE has actually become, dare one say it, nice. She gives a regal nod to Jason and Tracy and Inari. "Welcome, Mr. Edwards, Miss Trudeau, and Inari, I'm glad you could make it," she says. "It was going to be a rather dull Christmas otherwise."
Randall grins and leans on Akiko. "Nah, I'm convincing her to grow a beard too," he quips. Akiko slugs him in the side; he oofs.
"Yes, and back home," Tracy says. "Home-home, I mean, with my parents. My school record is a mess of course, and I'll have to retake everything, and reapply even. And I've been lonely and miserable and having new nightmares now, but... at least I know that I'm real, right? And.. see how Inari teases me? She doesn't let me tease Jason at all."
"Yeah ... real," Cadena says, looking sober. "Speaking of that ... I've ..." He shakes his head. "Sorry, Miss Tracy. It's kind of crowded up here, you know." He taps on his forehead with his free hand. "And it looks like I'm needed somewhere. What timing."
Akiko is dressed more Western-style, in a jumpsuit fitted to look like a high-decolletage dress in front, backless, with trailing holographic ribbons that make it look like she's trailing fireworks as she moves. "Needed?" she says, touching Cadena's hand. "Is something wrong?"
"Maybe we could get the same therapist," Tracy suggests to Cadena with a wan grin. "Don't worry about me, I won't fall off the building or anything."
"Don't believe a thing she says. She's been playing her games most of the time as well as getting to use customized systems for design. She also got to sleep as late as she wanted. She's just trying to get attention," Jason claims after Tracy explains her horrible fate and as he reaches up to rest his hand on Inari's arm around his neck. To Mrs. Arcadia he actually takes on a more formal tone when he says, "Thank you for inviting us. I hope everything has gone well with the ..." There he stops and has to eye Cadena.
Ms. Arcadia looks over to Cadena worriedly as well. She checks her bracelet. "Margie's lifesigns are normal... She's just sleeping," she murmurs. To the others, she adds, "She's taking to the treatments fantastically. It's such a relief! I never thought..." She brushes a tear away.
"I'll try to be back soon," Cadena apologizes, as he pats Tracy's hand. He hurries over to Mrs. Arcadia, and urgently whispers to her, "She's awake. She says it's 'time.' I'm going to go check with the doctors, if that's all right, ma'am."
Tracy chews on her lower lip as she watches Cadena. She's dressed in a purple metallic-fabric blouse with a matching gold skirt, along with a purple sash and blue boots. Her taste in colors hasn't changed much it seems. "It's about that Observer Soul thing, I bet," she whispers to Akiko.
Cadena pauses for a bit, looking distant, then shaking his head and stifling a chuckle. "All right," he says. "If you care to come along, Miss Tracy, that's all right. Only fair, after all you've had to put up with for this. If all goes well, this should be a major load off my mind." He sighs, though, hinting at a bit of anxiety despite the attempt at a mirthful demeanor, and heads toward the rooftop access-way.
"Save me some egg-nog," Tracy tells the others and hurries after Cadena.
"Should we all go?" Jason asks, looking confused and rather unsure what they should be doing. "Or .... maybe not?"
Inari pushes Jason along. "I'm not missing this!"
"Yes, Ma'am," Jason calls over his shoulder to Inari as they're insistently pushed along!
"By the way," Cadena says to Tracy as they head in, "it looks like ATLAS was behind Brother Cadena's 'finding' ability, after all. I got fixed up with a VR connection, and ... well ... that whole finding thing is dead as a doornail. Gone. Gonna be a whole lot harder to fulfill all those debts he racked up." He takes a deep breath as he enters the room, bracing himself for the occasion.
"I'll help," Tracy promises. "I still have some clout in the virtual worlds at least."
The nurse on duty looks up, then smiles at Cadena as he arrives. Ever since he changed to nice looking clothes instead of his guards uniform, everyone has treated him a lot nicer. The maid even flirted at him once. "She's asleep, resting well, sir," she says.
Randall trails behind with Akiko. Ms. Arcadia, dressed down (comparatively) in a simple long-flowing orange dress, watches from the doorway.
Cadena just nods, and walks over to Margie's side. "All right," he says, to no one apparently in particular, looking a bit hesitant. "Guess I've got to hand over the reins for a spell. This is your trail, pardner."
Akiko squeezes Randall's hands. RIU perches on the foot of the bed and watches, all big-eyed!
Jason arches his brow as he watches, then shrugs slightly. He's probably nervous, though, given how much he shifts his weight from one foot then back again.
Tracy keeps chewing on her lip, and doesn't try to hide her nervousness at all.
Cadena closes his eyes for a moment, and then they snap open. He looks momentarily disoriented, glancing around the room at all those gathered, and then down at Margaret. Then, he looks as if there's a spark of recognition. "It's all right, Margie. I'm back. We made it." He brushes aside a few strands of mane from his forehead, and taps the blue gem-like structure embedded in it, then stoops down to touch Margaret's forehead.
The golden vixen swishes her tail back and forth, leaning on Jason. She whispers, "Hopefully Margie's soul isn't shy and afraid to come out in front of all of us."
The brainwave monitor shows a flicker, just when Cadena touches Margaret.
The dog-man clears aside Margie's bangs, carefully trimmed and arranged all this time while she's been asleep. He leans over and gives her a gentle kiss on the forehead. "Time to wake up, Princess."
"Somehow, I doubt it; we saw what she built after all," Jason says in a whisper. "She has too much energy to sleep forever."
The cameras show nothing of this, nor do the monitors show anything of interest. But still, it seems like a phantom image, left on the eyelid after one blinks when seeing a strong light, an after-image: somehow, a ghost version of Margaret falls backward from Cadena's body as he leans toward her body, arranging her limbs so as to be resting in the bed the same way her actual body is...
And when his muzzle touches her forehead, the brainwave monitor flickers back to life, showing a steady rise to consciousness.
She stirs, then blinks her long, long eyelashes, looking up.
"Cadena, are you.. okay?" Tracy whispers, now that his former mistress is waking up.
Ms. Arcadia begins to cry softly, her lips smiling. Her daughter... She's waking up from the long sleep.
"Sorry, Margie," Cadena whispers, as a tear starts forming at his eye. "I went with the Tyke Time version." He winks at Margie, sharing some obscure joke.
"You know, I've walked through multiple universes; saved demons; fought myself, and freed a deity," Jason says as he watches the girl's eyes flutter open, then has to pause to actually wipe his own "But today I think I can finally say I've seen the impossible. I guess true magic really is possible, after all."
"CADDIE!" Margie squeals and grabs him around the neck, hugging him like a big overgrown stuffed toy. "You're all grown up! I missed you! I missed you, so, so much." She rests her face against his cheekruff.
Logfile from Envoy. (OOC) Log start: d:\logs\av2\2013-01-25_28dayslater.htmlAt 1:13 A.M. in late January, 2070, the light goes on in the kitchen that bridges the Reality Check conference room and the main lab space. A somewhat ragged looking girl in sweat-soaked pajamas shuffles over to the counter, selects a coffee cube at random and drops into the steam hydrator. As it starts to pop and hiss, she pulls out one of the chairs at the small table, sits down, and then smacks her head down on the tabletop.
"My table isn't forehead-proof," comes a remark from the lab just off the kitchen. Apparently 1am is still work time for Jason because he sounds very awake in the other room. "So if you dent it, you're buying a new one."
"Were you already awake, or did you turn the room monitors back on while Inari is off on her 'find a media backer' junket?" Tracy replies. There's a 'ding' from the hydrator, and she gets up to fish a mug out of the sink, shake out the dregs of whatever was last in it, and fill it with the coffee she really doesn't like to drink in the first place.
"You assume I sleep. And speaking of sleep, why aren't you sleeping?" Jason asks from the other room. "And ... drinking those years-old coffee cubes? I use those to remove paint these days."
"Nightmare," Tracy mutters loud enough to penetrate the door, then decides she doesn't want to talk that loud so takes the mug of caffeinated sludge out into the lab. "What's your excuse? And do we have any BrainChill tablets left?"
"It's quieter to work on things at night," Jason remarks from his desk. He's hunched over a bit where he tinkers on some old-looking electronics board with some thin picks. "As for the pills. We probably have some somewhere. You really shouldn't take those, though. They're not good for you." And unuusal for him he actually stops working, sits back, and sets his tools aside. "So, what's this about a nightmare?"
"Oh, you know.. reliving some horrible thing, then it gets horribler somehow," Tracy says, brushing some damp hair out of her face. "I should be drinking water. I have to wash the bedsheets now before the sweat gets them crusty. You know I have nightmares every few nights."
"Except you defeated all the actual causes of your nightmares not that long ago. You really ought to stop punishing yourself," Jason remarks, waving a pick in her general direction. "It'll give you wrinkles."
"Who says these aren't new things?" Tracy says. "Like Inari going berserk on me, or the Frys dying because I didn't get them enough protection. And lava. Lava shows up a lot, and people falling into it. And sometimes I melt. I need to start seeing a therapist again."
"I think you like being miserable," Jason remarks. "I'm supposed to be the cranky miserable person. I might just have to sue you for infringement."
The girl makes a face after taking a sip of coffee. "I do not like being miserable," she claims softly. "I've just been busy and trying to figure things out as I go and.. just stressed. I thought I'd relax more, but I just can't unwind."
"Id recommend you spend more time in your VR designs, but frankly, they suck," Jason remarks a bit dryly. "It's been something I've been debating taking you to task on."
"You're just so encouraging," Tracy says sourly. "I've been working on other things. Like getting the King's Explorers recast into a rescue organization, and trying to get the 'VR is Real' movement to quiet down and be useful. I've gotten safe-houses set up in the Diadem and Gloaming to bring any accidental visitors to, where Hecate can portal them out, and set up the Frys with a home and tried to get them to.. retire. They cause me all sorts of problems."
"You see, your problem is you're never really satisfied. You keep tinkering on things, even when they don't need to be," Jason remarks. He leans over and taps for a bit on a console. A hiss in the room precedes the activation of an old holographic system. The air grows damp as the mist-systems kick in, then a myriad of old lasers start tracing out an uncomfortably familiar person a few feet away. Tracy fines herself looking at a translucent version of 'Lady Tracer'. "And here is a prime example of your VR designs sucking because of over-tinkering."
"What? Tracer? How is having a successful alter-ego that people actually like and respect sucking or over-tinkering?" Tracy asks, sounding confused.
"Because you keep thinking of this as some sort of hero. The problem there is that's a complete lie to hide the real hero," Jason adds. He taps for a bit on the console and the figure of Lady Tracer is slowly stripped apart; adjusted, and shaped, until Tracy finds herself looking at ... herself. "That's the real hero. Everything else is just a mask. A costume, no different than the armor I tinker on. You're better as you any day. You're real, you care, and you try. You don't need magic to make a difference. It wasn't 'Lady Tracer' who saved a world, it was you. You should quit hiding in the mask so much; the real you is better than your crappy VR creation."
"I wouldn't know how to be brave if not for that crappy VR creation," Tracy mutters. "I'm only like that in a crisis though. The rest of the time I'm a mess. But Tracer is who people know, and I need her to get things done that have to get done. If I'm so great on my own, why am I sleeping on a couch, afraid of my best friend's girlfriend and waiting on lawyers to tell me if I can restart my life yet or not. My birthday is coming up, which is also depressing."
"Because you're a person, and you're young. Look at me. I live out on the outskirts of civilization and I'm a decade older than you. I have more of the crazy-failure person markers than you do. But I'm not miserable," Jason points out, then shrugs. "And you only still sleep on a couch because you haven't asked me to build you an actual bedroom. The only person who actually looks down on you is you."
"I didn't think you wanted me staying that long," Tracy notes, and sips her bitter coffee. "Do you know anything about meta-materials?"
"If I wanted you gone, you would have been gone already. And besides, I couldn't disappoint RIU. He's still building a nest out of your underwear up in the rafters," Jason quips as he turns a bit to shut off the holo projector system. "As for meta materials ... in what sense? What context?"
"I need something that can act as a quantum insulator when interacting with superfluid Helium II," Tracy notes. "I want to make a Schroedinger Box."
"Why?" Jason asks.
"It's a project I'm working on for Penny Arcadia," Tracy says. "Just.. I had a notion about how to fix the whole fake matter problem."
"Why? We don't need matter crossing between realities, you know," Jason poibts out.
"Yeah, see.. that's the point," Tracy says. "I want to create a confined zone of isolated space in the real world, where an AI can be the only observer in order to manipulate things within the space. With a supply of real matter to use, for medical purposes. I call it Schroedinger's Cat Scan but Penny said that couldn't be the final name if it works."
"I don't blame her for refusing that name. It's silly," Jason agrees. He leans back a bit in his chair so he can look up at the ceiling. "Now, what is this about Inari tearing you apart? She's not even around right now."
"Oh.. that.." Tracy says, slouching now. "She didn't want me to flirt with or tease you anymore. She sort of had her claws out and her hands on my shoulders when she made that request. I mean, it's not like you'd ever show any interest in me anyway, right?"
"Hm. Hearing that ... if I were feeling evil, I could flirt now and you couldn't respond," Jason says as he rubs his chin a-la evil-beard sort of way. Well, evil stubble, anyway.
"Do you even know how to do that?" Tracy asks, sounding skeptical.
"So you want to found out? Jason counters.
"Hmmm," Tracy ponders. "It does mean you'd have to be nice to me though."
"Oh, well, can't have that," Jason remarks. "It might give you a big head."
Tracy does one of her sorta-sideways pouts. "How much longer are you going to be awake?" she asks. "And what are you working on, anyway? Did you want to see my machine design?"
"Nothing very important. Just trying to deal with some noise issues in the EMF defense systems," Jason says, "As for your machine ... sure. I could use a break and a laugh."
"Can you use standard VR protocols with your implant?" Tracy asks next, since.. well, she doesn't recall Jason ever actually using VR without being inside of it.
"Yes, but it feels so dirty when I do that," Jason jokes.
"Okay, but please don't mess with my scape beyond avatar-related stuff?" the girl pleads, before dragging herself to her feet and heading over to 'her' workstation.
And Tracy distinctly feels a hand swat her on the butt as she passes by Jason's desk. "Now, would I ever mess with something?" he asks innocently.
The girl squeaks, and rubs her butt (primarily to dislodge the sweat-stuck fabric of her pajamas from it). "Just for that, I get to use your bathroom in the Forbidden Zone to clean up."
"Only if I help," Jason taunts. "I'm sure I have a hose somewhere."
Settling into the papasan chair, Tracy says, "Be careful what you promise!" She slots a particularly fat v-chip in the console, and makes the security adjustments for allowing a wireless connection, then puts on her own induction set. "Give me a minute to set things up," she says, before activating the VR headgear and closing her eyes.
"Sixty second countdown starting as of now," Jason quips, then obnoxiously starts loudly counting down. "60, 59, 58, 57..."
If Tracy hears, she doesn't react. She looks asleep, which means she's probably in the deepest interface mode instead of the normal hypnogogic state used for a game.
And so Jason naturally starts throwing paper airplanes at her. He can make them quite quickly as it turns out.
One does manage to lodge in the girl's ear.. but she's still deep under. One of the workstation displays lights up, and the message 'Ready for second connection' flashes on it.
Jason almost goes over and puts her in a suggestive pose, but decides not to. Instead he just sits back and closes his own eyes to establish his own connection to the node.
There's the usual odd tunnel-vision effect, but it's also a bit odd for Jason: usually he uses RIU for this rather than go in alone. Things resolve, and he finds himself standing in front of a full length mirror in what appears to be a large walk-in closet-dressing-room combination. To his right are rows of brightly colored Hawaiian style shirts and a variety of men's shorts (some knee-length) and swimming trunks. To the left is a similar selection of women's beachwear.
"Oh how I should resist the urge to grab from the ladies side," Jason remarks. He even pauses and eyes that side for a moment.
There are skirts and sashes and other accessories on that side, along with the bikinis, monokinis, shorts and t-shirts.
Jason thinks better of it, but makes a mental note for the future. Instead, he just turns and grabs a pair of shorts and a not-too-loud shirt from the men's side. He's coordinated enough to change clothing, at least, and does. "Waste of time; why not just have people appear in appropriate attire?" he mutters.
"Are you done in there?" calls Tracy from somewhere beyond the closet.
"I can't find anything for my breasts!" Jason calls back as he finishes buttoning the shirt.
"I didn't think to include any band-aids, sorry," Tracy replies.
"Touche," Jason quips, then leaves the dressing room.
The closet opens onto a large, empty bedroom. It must be a bedroom because there's a large bed floating in the center of it. The far and back walls are made of tinted glass, showing a beach from the side and a jungle behind, with a flagstone path leading into the jungle. There's a double-door leading into the rest of building, and Tracy is waiting in it. She's wearing two clamshells and a glowing, multicolored fiber-optic 'glass' hula-skirt. "Hmmm, I half-expected you to fashion a loin-cloth out of some of the wraps," she notes.
"And you are appropriately shell-shocked," Jason remarks. "Or I could have just worn jeans and a tee-shirt. I don't see the need for beachwear."
"It's a beach-house," Tracy notes, and heads into the next room. "I don't usually wear anything since it's just me, but it's good to know the clothes actually work."
"Then why wear anything now?" Jason asks as he follows after Tracy. "It's not like I haven't seen it before..."
"Because, you're my first guest," Tracy claims. "I don't want to cause a distraction or worse: apathy." She leads the way into the main room of the house. To the left is a wet bar (complete with actual Virtuhol, which only works with induction sets) and on the right is a kitchenette area. Beyond that are low tables, couches and even an entertainment center. There is no far wall: the floor just extends out to become a deck, with a sunken conversation pit (with firepit) on one side and a hot tub on the other. "I was expecting to have more friends when I started building this," Tracy admits.
"You have quite a few friends last I checked," Jason points out as he walks along and looks. "More than I have."
The deck faces on a lagoon, with a solitary sailboat moored out in the middle of it, and a few seagulls that fly around in perpetual orbit. "I still haven't had the nerve to throw a VR party though," Tracy notes, heading for the deck.
"Why not?" Jason asks as he continues to follow along. "I'm sure that werewolf guy would love to come to one."
"Because.. I'm still not much of a party person," Tracy admits. She turns right, down some steps to the beach - and the flagstone path that goes down the side of the house to the jungle. "Also, I never had a lot of processing power before."
"Again, you could have asked to borrow my systems," Jason points out. "The worst I would do to you is make you appear decked out in balloons. Really, you can ask me for things. I kind of hoped you would have trusted me a little by now."
"I don't like to impose," Tracy says, heading into the jungle. "You're always busy and looking put-upon or being worn out by Inari."
"I have to look put upon or you would get a big head," Jason claims. "And quit being jealous of Inari."
"Also, I'm still learning fusion-bellydance and don't need an audience for that," Tracy says, and actually pauses and turns. "Jealous? Jealous? That'd be like being jealous of Sasha," she insists. "I'm nothing like Inari, and I don't want to be like her, either." She spins around, causing the skirt to flare out, and marches onward.
"Funny, because you act like her," Jason quips as he continues to follow along. By now he's stuffed his hands into the short pockets.
"I do not!" Tracy claims, as they reach a clearing. The ground is stone, somewhere between natural and set. A large hot spring (also not quite natural, not quite artificial) takes up the far end, and there are benches and towels and a massage table with a blank-faced manikin standing over it, the only detailed bits of it being the natural-looking hands and forearms. "How am I like her? I'm not pushy! Or violent! Or.. just.. taking what I want.."
"You're uncomfortable, scared, and lonely," Jason points out and rolls his eyes. "So was she when I first met her. In-between the times she was trying to kill me. Inari has her own masks too, trust me on that."
"Still.. you were supposed to be with Akiko," Tracy says, a bit more softly. "She's the one that would have gotten you out more." She stands before the rotenburo, claps her hands three times and then holds her arms spread out. The water begins to part in the middle and move aside to expose stairs and a short walk to a an otherwise submerged hatchway.
"That's a bit overly dramatic. Next you'll have a great door that opens by saying 'Open Sesame'," Jason quips, shakes his head, then follows along. "And perhaps. But Inari does need someone to look after her and keep her 'on a leash' at times. Granted that can be fun in certain contexts..."
"Your bedroom isn't that soundproofed you know," Tracy claims, and heads for the hatch. "And it's not dramatic. Lots of games use this." She punches in a combination on the hatch keypad to get it to open. "I'm sure if you were designing things, you'd have something weird."
"I could always ask Inari to bite you and make you look like her," Jason claims. "As for a door, I would have it in a volcano. That's the appropriate place for an evil genius."
"I am not an evil genius," Tracy notes, and heads inside. There's a steel catwalk leading into a blank black space. "Watch out for the laserbats and crabflies."
"No, you're just evil," Jason agrees. Since he can terminate the VR connection anytime he wants, he's not worried about any sort of strange guard creatures ... and follows along.
It turns there aren't any laserbats or crabflies after all. Just a big metal sphere, twenty feet across, connected to a lot of cryogenic pumps. There's a hatch on the front, which Tracy pulls open. It's a foot thick with insulation, and a black shimmery inner layer. Beyond that is.. another hatch, opening inward to another sphere.
"You should have designed it to look like Russian nesting dolls," Jason comments. "Spheres are so passe."
"Spheres are efficient," Tracy notes. Inside the inner sphere is a rather cramped space, mostly taken up by the rings and sliding bed of a full-body scanner. Beyond that is the familiar slap of a Q-Core, engraved with caduceus symbol. Two robotic arms with pneumatic hypodermic injectors are folded by the foot of the scanner, and are clearly able to reach inside. Tubes connect them to mixing chambers and a serious of containers above the scanner.
"Almost all the rest of the volume is ultracapacitors," Tracy says. "Enough for ninety minutes of power, with about an hour of actual quantum isolation time for the AI to operate. The insulation can't prevent heat-noise getting into the Helium sheath and breaking the isolation."
"And you say I need to get out more. You really ought to be a normal college kid," Jason remarks as he looks over the odd machine. "Not some Frankenstein protg.
"I thought I was your protege?" Tracy points out.
"Minion," Jason corrects.
Tracy rolls her eyes at that. "Sidekick, at least," she counters. "It can't do gene sequencing or anything like that. That has to be pre-done, and any gene-repair sequences loaded into the matter bank."
"Anyway, if I can get it to work, it'll fix Inari of whatever her problem is," the girl assures. "Hecate already has a simulation worked up for dealing with oxidation damage and mitochondrial repair."
"And that is why you've been doing this? To fix Inari?" Jason asks, brow arched a little at that.
"That's a big part of it, yeah," Tracy says, a bit more seriously. "But mainly.. because I wanted to make use of the technology in a way that doesn't require sending someone into VR. Something harder to abuse. Even the AI can't do a lot in the time it has to operate. This isn't magic, just superposition of virtual and real waveforms."
"I thought you hated Inari, though. Why help her?" Jason asks.
"I don't hate her, I'm just afraid of her," Tracy says. "But you're in love with her. Even when I had a major crush on you, I didn't do anything.. much.. because I knew you'd be better off with Akiko. I don't want you being hurt because of Inari's health."
"Tracy, I've lived through the death of my family. I'm tougher than you seem to think," Jason points out, then shrugs. "Not that I don't appreciate you wanting to help ... just that you aren't obligated to."
"This is how I can be a hero without Tracer though," Tracy points out. "This can save a lot of people, not just Inari. If it works. The entanglement barrier is the last issue. And if that works.. it means you can use it to protect areas against synechdoche events too, maybe."
"But you need to have your own life, too. You can't just live to help others. You need to do stuff for yourself," Jason says, "And get past your nightmares; have a real life. You don't want to end up alone in some old building on the edge."
"I've had to restart my life twice now," Tracy notes. "Third time coming up. I need to get this stuff taken care of so I can have a life. Something that's not associated with monsters and fires and flashing my boobs and faking my own death."
"If you don't want to flash your chest, you shouldn't dress like that," Jason says while pointing at the clamshells. "I really don't know what more to say to you to convince you you're fine as you are. You don't need to wear masks or be some great hero."
"Well, what do you think I should do then to be happy?" Tracy asks, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Relax for once," Jason offers. "Just ... do something someone your age normally does. Go get drunk or something. Have a fling."
"You mean.. be like my mom?" Tracy asks, squinting one eye.
"You're too tall to be like her. Also, you don't have an octopus in a purse," Jason points out.
"Did you ever do those things?" Tracy asks, still looking skeptical.
"Not really," Jason admits.
"Even know anyone who did?" the girl continues.
"Yes," Jason asnwers.
"Someone other than Officer Cranberries that is?" Tracy asks.
"Yes," Jason answers.
"Okay... that's one more person that I thought you knew," Tracy admits. "How'd they turn out?"
"Fine, far as I know," Jason says and shrugs. "And it's also one reason Inari is enjoyable to be around; she pushes me past my own barriers. There's something to be said for trying new things."
"Ah, so if I do something, it's okay to drag you along?" Tracy asks, perking up.
"If I say yes, will you quit being grumpy?" Jason asks.
"Maybe," Tracy says, noncommittally. "But you're okay with me doing things that will make me feel better, right?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Jason asks.
"Oookay!" Tracy says, putting on a big exaggerated smile. "Can I use your likeness for my massage robot?"
"Why, exactly?" Jason has to ask.
"So I can pretend you're giving me massages of course," Tracy says, tweaking one cheek upward. "Why else?"
"Why would you want me to do that?" Jason has to ask,.
"What? I can have my fantasies, can't I?" Tracy says, sticking out her chin.
"Then go ahead. It won't have the tattoo I have anyway," Jason remarks with a grin. "So it wouldn't be completely a copy of me."
"What tattoo?" Tracy asks, curious now. "You don't seem the tattoo sort. That counts as an Identifying Feature after all."
"That's my little secret, now isn't it?" Jason says, grinning now.
"Little secret, eh?" Tracy asks. Clearly she is now determined to see this. "Well.. what do you think of my quantum nano-surgery system prototype? We shouldn't linger much longer, or the salt on my skin will start to itch."
"It's moderately impressive," Jason concedes about the machine. "I can just disconnect, so I don't need to head out any doors."
"Sure, leave a mess in my metadata stack," Tracy says. "See you on the outside!"
"I'll be sure to pee on something before I leave, too!" Jason claims ... then pops out of existance!
A minute later, Tracy opens her eyes in the lab, makes an odd expression, and reaches up to pull the paper airplane out of her ear.
"Be thankful I didn't have any permanent markers at hand," Jason quips, grinning and spinning his chair around slowly.
Without a word, Tracy shuts things down, gets up, recovers her coffee mug and shuffles into the kitchen.
"Problem?" Jason calls ater Tracy.
A few minutes the girl reappears, wearing her kimono-styled bathrobe and holding a bundle of bedsheets and her pajamas, which she dumps into the washer-dryer machine made of scavenged parts. Then she heads to the door to Jason's bedroom, turns towards him, and says, "Okay, I'm ready for my sponge-bath now."
"Sponges are next to the tub. Have fun," Jason quips as he spins his chair again. "I don't think the drain is clogged right now."
"Hey, you said I could use your bathroom if you got to help out," Tracy reminds him.
"I did! I told you where the sponges were," Jason points out.
"Aren't you going to give me a tour at least?" Tracy asks, gesturing at the door. "Are there booby traps?"
"Why would I boobytrap my own bathroom?" Jason has to ask and stands anyway.
"Is that a rhetorical question?" Tracy asks.
Jason rolls his eyes. "Fine, fine," he grumbles.
Jason heads to his door and actually unlocks it. He doesn't offer for Tracy to go first, though, he walks in and leaves the door open.
"This.. isn't what I expected," Tracy admits. "Where is the bank of security monitors? And that bed is huge. And there aren't any toys.."
"What? Sometimes I like quiet," Jason notes as e heads over and taps on a wall. The panel itself flickers, then takes on an image as if the building was nestled in the mountains and looking down on a mist-covered valley lit only by moonlight. "Bathroom is through the right side panel; hidden door. It'll slide open."
Eying the wall suspicously, Tracy pokes at it until she finds the door. "What side of the bed do you sleep on?" she asks.
"I sleep in the middle," Jason answers as a door opens into a bathroom as large as the bedroom! It's also clean, made of polished metal and artificial stone. It's designed to look like a chamber built into a cave, or some sort of natural grotto. The shower at the far end looks large enough for four people, easily ... and the tub could fit six or more! And it seems to have jet nozzles. When it's turned on, it probably looks like a natural hot spring.
"Have fun in the bath," Jason says as he heads to the bed and unceremoniously falls face first on it.
"This.." Tracy seems at a loss for words. "It's decadent. So.. unlike you.." She fiddles with the controls for the tub, and gets it to fill. She grabs a towel to keep close by before shucking her robe and getting in. "I bet if I turned up some of these jets to full power I could swim in place against the current!" she notes.
"If you flood my bathroom I'll flush you down the toilet," Jason mutters. He's still face down on the bed. "I spend money where I will enjoy it. You don't know everything about me, you know."
"You didn't scavenge and restore this?" Tracy asks from the center of the tub, at the middle of the jet vortex. "I'm impressed. This had to cost a fortune."
"Do I spend money on anything else?" Jason has to point out.
"I don't know what your budget is like," Tracy admits. "I assumed you had bug-out bags full of cash and fake IDs stashed in airport lockers or something."
"Never said I didn't," Jason quips annoyingly.
Tracy is quiet for a bit as she washes her hair, then moves to one of the lounging benches in the tub where the massage jets are. "Why keep this all secret from me?" she asks. "Did you just not want me in your bedroom?"
"Why do I have to show people everything I have?" Jason counters. "My sanctuary is my private place to just relax and not worry about everything."
"Really?" Tracy asks. "You can really relax in here? What do you do?"
"I relax," is all Jason will say.
"Do you relax as well when Inari is in here?" Tracy asks next, as if trying to isolate the exact quantum-of-relaxation.
"Depends on what she wants," Jason says vaguely.
"I guess I mean when you're both just, you know.. sleeping," Tracy clarifies.
"Well, of course," Jason replies. "Sleeping is relaxing."
Tracy shuts of the jets and drains the tub, then starts toweling dry. "Okay, that's good to know," she says.
"For what?" Jason has to ask. He still sounds like he's face down on the bed.
Still drying her hair with the towel, Tracy walks into the bedroom. She sets the towel down, and pulls back the bedcover on the closest side of the bed, sliding in until she's a lump next to Jason. "I want to relax," she says. "So can I sleep in your bed with you? And I mean.. actually sleep. I've never slept next to anyone and if it's comforting then maybe I won't have nightmares."
"You're naked, and in my bed," Jason mutters from his pillow. "And are you sure you would want to? You were just saying something about Inari killing you..."
"It's a big bed," Tracy notes. "My pajamas will be dry in an hour though. I trust your established lack of interest, along with my exhaustion, to keep things chaste. Unless you want to cuddle or spoon or something? I don't know how you and Inari position yourselves. I'm okay with that, too."
"Just saying. As long as you behave, I don't care," Jason says as he flops an arm around, finds the light control, and turns off the light. It's still dim in the room from the simulated moonlight, at least. And he crawls into bed ... still fully dressed. At least he takes off his shoes and socks.
"Wait," Tracy says in sudden alarm. "Do you snore?"
"No," Jason mutters.
"Oh, okay," the girl says, laying her head back on the pillow. "Goodnight then, Jason. This bed is a lot better than the folding one. Thanks for not kicking me out of it on principle."
"There's still time for me to do that if you really want me to," Jason offers.
"I'd have to ask you to turn in your Man Card then, I think," Tracy notes.
"Touche," Jason mutters. "Goodnight. If you snore I'll stick carrots up your nose."
"If I do just roll me over and rub my belly," Tracy mutters sleepily.
"I'll rub your chest instead, just because," Jason mutters. "I still think they're secretly the volume knobs on women."
"Mine go to eleven," Tracy claims, and rolls over to face Jason. "I don't think you'd do that though. I'm sure you tested that theory with Inari already, right?"
"She gets louder," Jason mutters.
"I probably don't," Tracy claims.
"Go to sleep, you weirdo," Jason mutters, laughing.
"Halfway there.." Tracy mutters, curling up a bit to sleep.
No more commentary from Jason. Apparently he's going to let the crazygirl sleep there all night. It might also have to do with the nightstick he keeps under the pillows; just in case. Never know what she'lll do next.
Amazingly, Tracy barely moved for the rest of the night. There was none of the usual nightmare-induced thrashing about that would set off the security cameras in the conference room, or much of anything else. She kept the covers up to her chin and had her face half-buried in her pillow. And she didn't snore.
And the morning comes with sunlight bleeding through her eyelids. And there's a nice breeze too. Jason must really have good simulation gear in the bedroom! Why, the sound of overheard engines seem so real too...
The girl stirs, and a hand appears to brush the hair out of her face that's being blown about. Finally both arms appear as she rolls onto her back and stretches. "Wow, I have slept that good since... before Sasha," Tracy mutters, then finally opens her eyes.
And Tracy finds herself sitting on the roof. It's mid-morning. And even odder, she finds she has some sort of harness wrapped about her upper torso. Her arms are free, at least, but that harness is sure snug.
"Uh.." Tracy says. "Maybe I'm having a nightmare after all." She checks the harness, and to see if she's suddenly sprouted any other odd clothing, since she went to bed naked.
She's at least wearing underwear to go along with that harness; everything necessary is covered up. But. the comment about having a nightmare seems appropriate. The click that sounds from behind her, along with the tug on the harness sure seems like one.
Tracy turns around to see what's tugging on her. "What's going on?" she cries out, in case this is a dream and the vegetable garden will answer her.
Jason is standing right behind her, clad in in a partial exoskeleton. "Oh good, you're awake," he remarks, grinning, well ... it's not sadistic, but it is a rather evil grin. "Hopefully you won't flop around too much..."
"What's going on?" Tracy asks, looking scared now as she searches the harness for catches. "Did you put this stuff on me?"
"Of course. I didn't want you to fall," Jason remarks. His eyes narrow, he hefts her up and cinches the catches closer; her hack is pressed against his chest. "It's normal to scream, by the way," he whispers in her ear. There's a rumble; then the pair shoots straight upward into the air! Jason had on the rocket parts of his armor, it seems!
"Ahh!" Tracy screams, and flails her limbs. "Wait! Get us down!" she cries.
"Never! I need a moving weight test!" Jason croons as their hight draws stable and they bob back and forth several hundred feet above the ground. "And since you like to make my nights torture, I thought I would make your morning!"
"I didn't do anything!" Tracy pleads. "I just wanted a good night's sleep for once! How'd you get me into this?!"
"You don't sleep much, so when you did; it was like a rock," Jason claims as the pair bobs and weaves back and forth. The rocking back and forth eases up, within a few seconds the pair is in a stable hover. "So, it was pretty easy," he claims; the dull rumble of the rocket systems settling into a repeating tone.
"No way! Ack!" Tracy exclaims, once things settle down. "You handled me? You wouldn't touch me! And why didn't you put me into a jumpsuit! It's cold, and I have to pee!"
"That makes it more exciting, don't it?" Jason asks, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat.
"This isn't funny," Tracy says, sounding really alarmed now. "Can we go back down now? Please?"
"You're fine. It's as safe as the crazy sport you do," Jason points out. "Safer! I built it."
"But I've got nothing to hold onto! And I'm nearly naked and I really wasn't kidding about having to pee and how could you do this to me?" Tracy rattles.
"You don't need to hold onto anything, you're strapped to me!" Jason points out. "Isn't this exhilarating?"
"I WANT TO GO BACK DOWN!" Tracy cries, and really does seem about to burst into tears.
So, down they actually go. The descent is controlled, but reasonably quick. Her feet are touching the pebbled roof within the next minute. The sounds of jets cut off too. Click goes the catches that were securing her to Jason a few seconds later. "Not quite the reaction I expected," he admits.
Tracy immediately gets down on her knees and hyperventilates. "Not.. what were you expecting?" she cries. "I have nightmares about being kidnapped and you.."
"Tried to show you everything was okay, even when you aren't in complete control," Jason admits as he crouches down. "And that sometimes you have to trust people. Yes, I know, that coming from me. Life is full of unexpected things; but it tends to work out."
"I trusted you, and you.. tied me up?" Tracy sniffs. "Are you crazy? Things were bad enough for me when I was just at Executive's Kid levels of danger, and even then nobody thought I was worth the risk! The only guy who did just wanted to cash in on it! I've been on TV associated with a terrorist attack, reported killed by Dantech drones.. and probably have the fringiest fringe of the 'VR is Real' movement wanting to get their hands on me too. Nobody in their right mind would have anything to do with me except for people I shouldn't trust!"
"No, if you were tied up you wouldn't be able to move," Jason points out, "I used a tandem jump harness on you. Big difference." He starts t fiddle with his feet now, disconnecting the makeshift jet assemblies. "And I hate to point this out, but the fringest of the fringe isn't as strange as I am; and you aren't scared of me. You see too many shadows. And when a guy legendary for being paranoid tells you that, maybe you should listen."
Tracy is still choking a bit and wiping her eyes. "So, you say it's all in my head and I'm paranoid and don't have any problems at all.." she mutters. "Despite that a bunch of fantasy monsters did come after me and caused a lot of damage on the way, and my ex did try to sell me out.. Sorry, I've been through this all before you know. And just like then, nothing I do changes anything."
"It is because you invite it. You chose the ex that sold you out," Jason points out. "You basically want to be miserable, so you ensure that you are."
"And nothing changes because you don't want it to," he adds.
The girls turns to glare at Jason and asks, "So what do I do? What can I do?"
"Let it go," Jason suggests. "And try enjoying living instead of being afraid of it."
"What does that mean? Let it go?" Tracy asks, still upset and rubbing at her forehead. "I just.. Can we go inside? I still can't believe you dug out my underwear and.."
"I can't believe you want me to be predicable," Jason counters. "And that you shave off your body hair."
"I don't shave," Tracy snaps. "I use a long-acting topical.. why would you even bring that up?" She asks. "I know you don't find me attractive but do you have to tease me about everything?"
"Because it made dealing with you like dealing with an android, or a mannequin," Jason points out as he rises. "And yes, I do, or you would accuse me of being sick."
"So I'm a mannequin now," Tracy mumbles and heads for the stairs, only pausing to ask, "Is there some other way inside that's less exposed?"
"What do you want to be?" Jason asks, "And of course there is. No self-respecting recluse like me would be without a few secret doors." And so he kicks the side of an air vent and another stairway down opens up a few feet away from him.
Tracy seems hesitant to enter the stairwell, as if worried someone my push her from behind. "I want to be.. someone worth the risk. Not just valued by what I'm worth to others," she says quietly as she starts to descend. "I'm tired of being worthless."
"Who said you were worthless?" Jason asks as he follows behind Tracy. "Secret of life, you're only worth the price you set on yourself. Take me for example, I'm priceless."
"You said it," Tracy notes. "You said a 'relationship' with me wasn't worth the risk of embarrassment if anyone found out. With the other guys who broke it off, I always told myself - and mom did too - that they were just afraid. But Sasha laid it out for me: I just wasn't worth the trouble. There's nothing special about me. There're plenty of better choices that don't have crap in their pasts that can't be asked about."
"Why care what she said, or what I did?" Jason notes as the end up on one of the ceiling catwalks. He closes up the stairs to the roof behind them. "And going by that logic of being 'worth it', I'm not either. I have plenty of things in my past I can't talk about."
"It's okay for a guy to be mysterious," Tracy claims, then vaults over the railing of the catwalk to catch the edge, where she can swing towards the wall, grab another pipe and drop down to the floor.
"By what logic?" Jason asks. His way down is more direct. He just rolls over the edge of the catwalk and uses the boot jets to stop himself from splattering on the floor.
"What's logic got to do with it?" Tracy asks, and finds a clear spot on a worktable to sit. "I'm just not.. very likable. I don't make friends easily, I'm emotionally fragile.. and I just fail at life in general."
"And I'm a mannequin too apparently," she sighs. "I mean.. what would you have done if I'd woken up while you were.. handling me?"
"Logic has everything to do with it. Also, I thought you had to pee," Jason remarks. "As for what I would have done, I would have claimed I was arranging blackmail photos."
"My bladder exaggerates when I'm under stress," Tracy says, "And because I was taught to say that when abducted.. and to do it if necessary because fouling yourself can potentially discourage rape."
"Like I would attempt that," Jason remarks and rolls his eyes. He now has to busy himself with removing the jets and the partial skeletal supports he's sporting.
"Executive Abduction Training makes a lasting impression when you're 15 years old," Tracy points out. "Why do you think I automatically stiffen up at first whenever I'm touched? And I still can't believe you'd mess around with me naked but would never give me a hug or anything comforting.."
"Putting clothing on someone is hardly 'messing around'," Jason points out, waving one boot around for emphasis. "And I have been plenty comforting."
"You have?" Tracy asks. "You seem to go out of your way to kick me or stomp on any sign of hope or.. I guess we have different notions of comfort then," she mutters.
"I treat you like a friend," Jason points out. "If I hated you, I would just ignore you. Instead, I've let you live here and I've kept it interesting."
"So, you treat me like a friend, even though I'm just a nuisance you're stuck babysitting?" Tracy asks, frowning. "I thought.. after all the stuff you said last night.." She rubs at her face and sighs. "You offered to build me my own bedroom. Is that because you like having me around, or because you know I don't have anyplace else to go? What am I to you, really?"
"Someone more screwed up than I am," Jason claims. "And someone who needs to have another person around who won't tell them what they want to hear, but what they need to hear. So, a friend. Also, your left boob is slightly smaller than your right one."
"That's normal," Tracy notes. "If you were more familiar with boobs you'd know that. Are they as nice as Inari's though?" she asks.
Jason bursts out laughing. "The things I think will make you blink, don't," he says, wheezing.
"Well, it's not like I was awake to appreciate you noticing," Tracy claims. "And you didn't answer the question!"
Jason is too busy not falling over from laughing to answer the question it seems. "Why does it matter?" he counters once he can manage to breathe again.
"Because it's the only other set you're familiar with," Tracy points out. "And because Inari intimidates me."
"And this has become a battle of the boobs?" Jason asks.
"I'm just curious," Tracy claims. "I mean.. I want to know if there's another thing to add to my jealousy list. Or my inadequacy list. I don't have a victory list.."
"And I know there is no safe answer to that question, so I won't answer it," Jason points out. It is his turn to wipe his eyes of tears ... from the laughing.
Narrowing her eyes, Tracy says, "Well.. I bet mine taste better at least. And in the face of no evidence to the contrary I'm going to claim that as a victory: non-musky tasting boobs."
"I like how hers taste," Jason remarks. He even waggles his brow, adding, "It's a real call of the wild..."
Tracy sticks her tongue out and makes a face. "Ugh.. so.." she asks, looking more sidelong at Jason now, "are you in love with her?"
"Love is such a vague term," Jason answers as he waves his other boot around now. "And don't knock the experience of being with someone slightly animalistic."
"Yeah, well, the werewolf wasn't that impressed with the real me so I guess I'll just have to imagine," Tracy notes. "Do you love me?" she asks.
"You turned the werewolf down," Jason points out. "And why all these questions about love?"
"I didn't turn him down," Tracy claims. "And I'm just curious to know if you love anyone. I mean, I was in love with someone!"
"Given I would have died to save Inari, and I've offered to give up being human for her, infer what you will," Jason answers rather indirectly.
Tracy's quiet for a bit, then asks, "So what's wrong with me? That I have to fix to be.. less miserable?"
"You worry too much about how other people see you. Just be you. Quit trying to impress others.
"You worry too much about how other people see you. Just be you. Quit trying to impress others. Also, walking around naked is not necessary," Jason adds. "Plus, grow some fur. Maybe a tail..."
"I never tried to impress others," Tracy claims. "And.. you don't really know what I'm normally like. I'm wishy-washy and quiet and shy around most others. And I don't 'walk around naked' for attention! That was just because you.. that is, I.." Tracy pauses to rub her face again. "Since you're in love with Inari, and I'm no temptation or anything, can I sleep with you so I don't have nightmares? My pajamas were in the wash last night.."
"That was just because what?" Jason asks, "And maybe you can. It depends."
"Because I wanted your attention," Tracy says, throwing her hands in the air. "I'm a stupid teenager who fell in love with a jerk who couldn't see what was in front him because he was still hung-up on unresolved feelings for someone else, and clearly wasn't ever going to be happy with me so I pushed him to resolve things and.. as usual.. just got hurt and heartbroken and had my nose rubbed into just how badly I'd lost.."
"Clearly I did it because I want to be miserable, just like you said," she concludes.
"One, I'm far too old for you. Two, you can do a lot better. Three, I'm broken anyway," Jason points out and sighs. "You saw what the younger me was like on to of it. You know, the clone. I'm hardly likable."
"But you were someone I could talk to about the stuff I couldn't talk to about with anyone else," Tracy says quietly. "And you were all alone. I thought you'd be.. sympathetic. Age doesn't matter you know. But I was doomed to fail anyway. I always have been, because I won't play to win. Because of her. My mantra has always been, 'What Would Sasha Do,' just so I would know what not to do. It's not just with you, it's with everyone. I've convinced myself that trying to get what I want is.. bad."
"That all depends on motives and methods," Jason points out and shrugs a bit. "And who says I wasn't sympathetic? I just don't ... coddle. That would just re-enforce, well ... self destructive behavior."
"Because all you ever did was make me feel guilty for feeling bad, because everyone else had it worse," Tracy notes, looking at her feet and twitching her lips back and forth. "I couldn't even suffer adequately. I just don't want to be hurt anymore. I sometimes wish I could just.. merge back with Tracer again. I don't have to worry about anyone getting hurt just because they're around her. Or having to deal with questions that I can't answer.. I still don't know what to do if someone asks me about any of this stuff. Hey, what was that attack about? Can't say. What's up with that whole being shot down thing? Can't say. What reason do I have to trust you then? None."
"You shouldn't be suffering at all. You're punishing yourself, others aren't trying to. And if someone asks you about stuff, just tell them you don't want to talk about it. If they keep asking, you just don't say anything. And I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty, I was trying to get you to forget about it, or laugh, or hit me with a pillow for being annoying, or something," Jason says, "And since you're so worried about if people think they can trust you. Why do you feel you can trust me? It isn't like I ever give a straight answer."
"Because I think you care about me," Tracy says. "That maybe, just maybe, you actually want a friend to hang around with. It doesn't hurt me to be around you anymore, not like it did at first when Inari was here. I felt trapped. I still feel trapped. You say I just have to change my outlook but.. how? The stupid risks I wasn't worried about did happen. I still don't know what to do. Should I just go live on the Avatars campus so my parents can watch over me? Get an internship, let them set me up with someone they know they can control? You've seen how far away I am from what I want to be - a friggin' virtual party house that nobody's ever been to!"
"I think you should have breakfast and be grateful I didn't know you used pee as a defense mechanism," Jason finally says after all that. "Otherwise ... well ... I think the first aid kit does have a catheter kit for handling kidney stones..." He's also making sure there is at least one table between himself and the girl.
Tracy sits up straight and takes a deep breath. "Breakfast.." she says. "And it does matter if I'm naked right? I mean.. you're at least a little uncomfortable about it?" she asks.
"I'm not dead am I? Of course it is uncomfortable," Jason says and rolls his eyes.
"And you were just teasing about the fondling my breasts if I snore thing?" she asks next, just to be certain.
"Try it and find out," Jason threatens.
"I'd rather be able to sleep soundly," Tracy says. "And you have my permission to sleep naked if you want to. After all, I could have had you anytime I wanted, if not for What Would Sasha Do." She grins, and gets up, adjusting her panties a bit before heading back to the bedroom (where her bathrobe is). "It just takes three little words, after all.."
"And what words are those?" Jason just has to ask. "And I am not that easy."
Tracy pauses and turns, hands on hips, and says, "I. Challenge. You.. And it'd be something hard too, like.. make love to me at least three times a day until Inari returns or something! I'm pretty sure it meets the rules of the game, since I might back out of it. Probably the only Challenge to you I could win really. And do you think I should throw a VR party on my birthday? Use the beach house, actually come out that I'm Lady Tracer and all that?"
"Hardly a challenge. I'll just build a replica of myself," Jason claims. "As for your birthday, throw a real party, not a fake one. They're more fun. Except for vomit; that's not so much fun. Now go, get dressed. Worry about things later."
"A real party?" Tracy asks. "Uh.. I'm not as confident in reality you know. And what do you want for breakfast?" she calls, stopping first at the dryer to retrieve her pajamas and then heading for the bedroom.
And as helpful as ever, Jason answers that with "Edible food!" There's this pause, then he adds, "But not the edible undies Inari left. I'm saving those..." He smirks to himself, then wanders into the kitchen, muttering to himself about it would serve her right if she thinks too much on that.
Zahnrad theres.